


you fill up my senses

by shatteredwriters



Series: The More Loving One [2]
Category: MASH (TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Feels, Bisexual B. J. Hunnicutt, Bisexual Benjamin Franklin "Hawkeye" Pierce, Falling In Love, Feelings Realization, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Hidden Feelings, Love Letters, M/M, Mutual Pining, No idea where this is going, OR IS IT UNREQUITED?, Slow Burn, Unrequited Crush, Yearning, and so very self-indulgent but hey, i am so here for the hunnihawk ship, or how long its going to be, the hunnihawk train is leaving the station so choo choo mfs, these characters are just my favorite and i cant help writing about them, this is my way of channeling my obsession with alan alda and mike farrell so enjoy, wow this is a lot angstier than i thought it was going to be...
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-23
Updated: 2021-03-05
Packaged: 2021-03-07 00:41:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 23,435
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26058163
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shatteredwriters/pseuds/shatteredwriters
Summary: "For one human being to love another; that is perhaps the most difficult of all our tasks, the ultimate, the last test and proof, the work for which all other work is but preparation." -Rainer Maria RilkeIt started out as one letter. One note. Quickly written and quickly hidden. But when you love so much about another person, could you really just stop at one?
Relationships: B. J. Hunnicutt/Benjamin Franklin "Hawkeye" Pierce
Series: The More Loving One [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1904914
Comments: 68
Kudos: 54





	1. the eyes tell more than words could ever say

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! This transformed from some quickly scrawled descriptions on a random word document into a whole story (which was unplanned but here we are). While it's been done before, and probably by writers much better than me, I have decide to write this just the same! So, here is my take on a possible beginning for B.J. and Hawkeye, centered around hidden emotions, mutual pining, and unsent letters. I hope you all enjoy!
> 
> title inspo from the John Denver song of the same name (one of my faves)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Inspiration strikes, and B.J. just has to write down what he's feeling. Who wouldn't fall in love with Hawkeye's eyes?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> fic inspo from https://bjhunnicutt.tumblr.com/post/178875709947 + https://hunnislutt.tumblr.com/post/625964943298134016

There were very few redeeming qualities of the OR. It was either too hot, with sweat dripping down your back in a steady stream and heat clinging like an impermeable second layer atop your skin; or it was too cold, where you could see your breath clouding in front of your face and you didn’t think your hands could stop shaking enough to make the first incision. On your feet for hours on end, back hunched, mind intently focused. It was draining.

And the soldiers. The _kids._ They just seemed to get younger. Some days the faces started to blur together, and those were the days that scared B.J. the most.

The OR was his least favorite place in this whole camp, in this whole country, in this whole war, and yet it was the single place he felt he spent most of his time. At least it could be argued it was well spent. He was impressed with how incredibly the 4077th team worked together and how many lives they actually managed to save. To be honest, he was damn proud to work alongside them. Potter, Margaret, Charles, the nurses, even Klinger. And Hawkeye.

His bunkmate was one of the best surgeons he’d ever worked with. How he managed to remove shrapnel with more precision and accuracy than the rest of them, while simultaneously sing an off-key tune or ramble off a crude joke, was beyond B.J.’s comprehension. There was never a dull moment around the infamous Hawkeye Pierce. If he wasn’t talking, which wasn’t very often, he was gesturing wildly, batting his eyelashes, or raising his eyebrows at B.J. over something snooty Charles had said.

As much as he hated the OR, he loved the way Hawkeye would look at him over his surgical mask. With nothing else showing but those expressive dark blue eyes.

B.J. leaned down over the blank sheet of paper, pencil in hand. Poised.

The anticipation of penning such a letter was coiling his stomach into knots, his heartbeat sounding much too loud in his ears.

It was blasphemous, perilous.

His knee bounced and jerked, his lower lip captured nervously between his teeth.

But he just couldn’t help himself.

_Those blue eyes…_

So blue it made him want to weep.

_It is the same color as the bright summer sky that frames the Golden Gate, and the cool waters of the lake where my parents used to take me fishing when I was growing up. It is the clearest, deepest, most pure blue I have ever seen…_

B.J. could picture them in his mind, how starkly they stood out against the deep red of his robe and beneath his tousled salt-and-pepper hair.

_There are so many different shades swirling in their depths that I feel like I’ll never be able to keep track of them all._

_The darkest blue forms the most beautiful circle around your iris. Painted with the thinnest of brush strokes, it keeps the lapping ocean of color enclosed and contained in perfect symmetry. Within is a calming storm of the palest blue that I find myself getting lost in more often than I care to admit. Those turquoise rings draw me in, make me feel safe. As they say, the eyes are the windows to the soul. And Hawkeye, yours is the most stunning soul of all._

_Every emotion that crosses your face and thought that races through your mind can be found dancing and twirling in a cerulean sea. Your eyes light up like a dazzling fireworks display on the Fourth of July, making me laugh as loud as you are and feel as if I hadn’t a care in the world. And yet. They also possess that shattering truth of real pain, azure witnesses to unspeakable horrors and traumatic moments that will haunt your steps forever._

_They are some of the most honest eyes I have ever seen. Mirror reflections of your bare soul, open invitations into your world of mania, heartbreak, comedy, antics, gin, and pain…_

B.J. never wanted to stop looking at them. But he usually had to force himself to look away, to break eye contact before it became too much. Because there _was so much_ in those eyes. They made B.J. want to laugh, cry, cheer, rant, and rave. They held unspoken secrets and broken promises. They held insatiable mischief and devious flirtations. Those orbs were overflowing with such unbridled raw feeling that B.J. was certain he would drown. But as much as he felt like they would consume him, he also knew those eyes were his salvation.

_Catching a glimpse of those baby-blue beauties on my first day in Seoul, and I was done for. I’d fallen in an instant. Those eyes, with tiny rivulets of sapphire running through them, could morph with every miniscule change in the light. The worlds within those works of art mesmerize, excite, entice. They are too much to handle and yet I can’t get enough. How could I ever tire of submerging myself in the perfect pattern within those blue paintings?_

And though he was too afraid to admit it, B.J. found himself searching for those eyes every chance he got.

_They take my breath away, make me weak in the knees, and have my heart racing all at the same time. Seeing them alight with incorrigible perversion or insane debauchery is like a habit I will never break. I crave seeing those blue depths sparkle in the Swamp light, inky pupils blown wide with gin and joy. If I had the rest of my life to study them, it still wouldn’t be enough. They are my solace, my refuge, my safe harbor in this storm that is the Korean War..._

B.J. stopped his musings short. Knowing the words that were about to come next, words that he couldn’t bring himself to write. Three heart wrenching, impractical words.

Because when Hawkeye looked at him, goofy grin adorning his face and crinkling at the corners of the sweetest eyes he’d ever seen, B.J. knew he was home. And every time he looked back at Hawkeye, B.J. knew, that despite his best efforts, there was one sentiment that shone in his own eyes as brilliantly, innocently, and clearly as the sun.

_I_ _love you._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short I know but updates coming soon. I hope you guys liked it! Please please comment/leave kudos, I would love to see if you all are enjoying it. Until next time Swamp Rats!


	2. for the smile is the beginning of love

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> At battalion aid, Hawkeye fears for his life. He decides to write a note, a note dedicated to a specific person and their utterly gorgeous smile.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title taken from a Mother Teresa quote.   
> fic inspo from: https://hunnislutt.tumblr.com/post/621347477052866560
> 
> Enjoy!

Another shell impacted too close for comfort.

Hawkeye felt the reverberations from the blast chattering his teeth and sloshing his brain inside his skull. With a nervous breath, he straightened back up from where he had been leaning over the blonde haired blue eyed private on his makeshift table.

_To die will be an awfully big adventure._

_Not an adventure I’d like to embark on just yet_ , the surgeon mused, wondering where in the depths of his memories that line had been stored as he packed gauze into a shrapnel wound.

A self-professed unwilling participant in this crummy police action, Hawkeye Pierce loathed every single thing about this place. But of all the unappealing and dangerous locations to wind up in, battalion aid was by far the worst.

It was a constant stream of bodies, too many too far gone to save.

It was chaos and confusion. Time passed differently up here.

There was always more to do and never enough hands to do it.

Death was a bitter shadow that cloaked every action in futility, cruelly mocking every attempt at saving a life.

He waited. Patient, calculating, stalking. Cold fingers wrapping around too many young men’s hands as he led them off into the dusk. A constant companion of war; always lingering hauntingly near the unforgiving front.

Hawkeye wished he were anywhere else.

B.J. had been in post-op when the humvee came screeching to a halt in the middle of camp. They’d called for a surgeon, any surgeon, who could tide the aid station over until the new doctor came. Without a second thought, Hawkeye had grabbed his bag, a joke about not waiting up for him thrown in Colonel Potter’s direction, and then was speeding off towards uncertainty and danger.

He instantly regretted not finding B.J. to say goodbye.

Even more so now as the bombing around the tiny ramshackle shack intensified.

With a break in the wounded but no break in the onslaught of shelling, Hawkeye was huddled beneath a supply table, trying to keep his fear in check. It crashed upon him like an unrelenting wave, submerging him in cold sweat and sending his heart smashing against his ribcage. He was no hero, no knight in shining armor that dreamed of a glorious death in battle.

He didn’t even want to be here, let alone die here.

There were so many other places he’d rather be.

Like the coast of Maine on a warm summer’s afternoon, watching the jagged rocks peeking out from the white foam as a breeze smelling of adventure rustled through his hair. Or at his dad’s kitchen table, listening to him talk endlessly about his patients, a steaming mug of the best coffee he’d ever had warming his hands.

There were so many things he hadn’t done yet.

Like climb to the top of the Eiffel Tower, trek through the wilderness of Colorado, or spend countless hours sun kissed and drunk on a white Caribbean beach.

There were so many people to say goodbye to.

People he couldn’t imagine ever having to say goodbye to.

Shoving around in his pockets, Hawkeye found some folded scraps of paper. He reached above on the table, searching for the pencil he knew he’d left there earlier.

He had a letter to write. Well, maybe not a real letter. But something he wanted to get down. Something that he hoped might find its way back to the right person should the replacement surgeon never get here and Death decided to come for him.

In case he didn’t make it, he had to write it all down.

_I never thought I’d be writing this, let alone wishing you’d read this. I don’t boast to be any sort of a writer or poet; while I have a great many talents and remarkable gifts, prose is not one of them. I can ramble for days, flip jokes in the air like flapjacks, snap a zinging comment across the room faster than a slingshot. But a writer? Never had the gift._

_You know I almost failed English 101 in college? I was more interested in the sandy-haired looker two rows in front of me than I was with Shakespeare or Tennyson... You know me, I’m a natural born talker. Who has the time to stop and scribble everything down? There’s too much to do and see in this world to waste even a fraction of that time…_

Alright, enough delaying.

Just come right out and say it.

Nothing like a brush with death to make any other fears seem inconsequential.

_There are too many things I want to say but I only have two sheets of crumbled paper. If I had the time and the patience, I could write essays about you. And how I feel about you. But I’ve got limited space and am not great with these word things…so just bear with me, alright?_

_When you came into my life, I was drowning. I was consumed by the darkness within me and around me, wanting desperately to give into the fierce pain that had taken residence within my soul. I’d lost two of the most important people in my life one right after the other. This place has a way of pushing together the most disparate and incompatible of people, forging bonds between them that are unlike anything else. In the middle of a warzone, I found some of the best people in the whole world. Then one of them was lost and one of them was sent home. And I didn’t think I was ever going to come back from that._

_So there I was, sinking and wallowing and hurting. And then you came along. With your clean cut, pressed uniform, and fresh face, much too naïve for your own good. You were like an answered prayer. One I hadn’t known I’d asked, one that had been lying in wait on my lips and swirled unspoken in the depths of my mind._

_You were the light at the end of the tunnel, a beacon of hope when all else was lost, the response to a question I hadn’t dared to ask…_

Hawkeye paused, tapping the end of the pencil against his teeth. If he blocked out the bombing and the noise and the blood that stained his clothing, he could just about picture the first time they’d met. And the first time he’d seen that knock-out grin.

_I could tell you were scared, you know? I tried to keep the jokes rolling, ask you questions about your life before you were shoved into army green and shipped halfway around the world. Anything I could think of to distract you._

_Because I knew you shouldn’t be here. None of us should be here, but you especially. You are goodness incarnate; you are purity and honesty and virtue. You are the sun peeking out from behind the clouds after days of unrelenting rain and thunder. You are the first day of spring after a long, harsh, bitter winter. You, and that disarming, bewitching, scintillating smile. You are an unsolicited spark that has ignited a fire inside of me I cannot ever hope to contain. I am engulfed, I am enraptured, I am enamored. _

_The first time I saw you smile in that officer’s club in Seoul, I knew I was done for._

_God, there can’t be two just like it on earth! It is utter perfection. Crafted by angels, painted by Italian masters, more beautiful than a W.H. Auden poem._

_Whether you knew it then, or are just finding out now, that morning you saved me. With your cheeky grin and quick wit. How could I have known that you would swoop unsuspectingly into my life and pluck me back from the brink of desperation?_

_I was broken and you could fix me..._

A fine layer of dust shook itself from the roof of the small building as a shell exploded what felt like only feet away. Hawkeye cursed silently under his breath, eyes shutting in a desperate attempt to block out the life-threatening peril that was knocking all too near.

“That wasn’t _that_ close. Not close at all…”

The dark-haired surgeon swallowed nervously, the pencil in his hand shaking slightly. Mostly with fear of death, but also with fear of what he was admitting.

_You did fix me, little by little._

_With each smile that lit up your face, unbridled joy and unabashed ecstasy burning in your blue eyes. Not just those big toothy grins either, but those coy little ones you’d throw my way over a good hand of poker or across the table in the mess tent. The ones where you quirk up a corner of your mouth, titling your head to the side. Those are my favorite. And as crazy as it seems, I feel like those smiles are just for me. A slice of heaven in this hell on earth._

_I think I’m rambling at this point, but I can’t help it. This is what you do to me._

_Seeing as the shelling is only getting closer, I’ll admit something. I have spent every waking moment since seeing your smile for the first time trying to make it up to you. Trying to repay you for rescuing me. And, also trying my damnedest to elicit as many smiles out of you as I could. Dazzling, picture-perfect smiles that put the stars to shame; that never fail to shock me into an awed, gratified silence; that warm me more deeply and fully than all the gin in the still._

_Your joy_ _sends me falling, catapulting, tumbling. Spinning into a world of pure bliss and exultation, the very image of your smile an unparalleled masterpiece; the stuff of dreams._

_I wish I had the right words to express how much I love your smile. How seeing it every day keeps me fighting against the war, choosing to find the good in this situation, to be better. You, in your infinite perfection and brilliance, are everything I would want to be, everything I am searching for. You care so deeply it almost consumes you. Whether that be about your patients or your friends or your family, anyone other than you. Others always came first. You are unfailingly kind. Almost to a fault. I couldn’t imagine sending out that kind of compassion into this world, meeting each new face and experience with a smile. Your selflessness and goodness are just…indescribable. You knock me out, confound me, fill me with pride. I feel like a better person to have known you._

_All that you are, all that you’ve done and have yet to do, are wrapped up in the exquisiteness of your smile. It takes on so many different forms, all remarkable in their make up and wondrous in their actualization. I couldn’t pick a favorite one any more than I could pick a favorite song or memory._

_Thinking that one day this will all be over, and I won’t be able to see that breathtaking grin whenever I want, almost makes me wish the war never ends. Selfish and cruel and unrealistic of me, I know._

_But when that time comes, I’ll look back on this period in my life and hopefully remember more of the good than the bad. If you hadn’t guessed by now, you are the good I want to remember. Every single detail about you. Especially your smile. _

_I know I am more blessed than I deserve to be able to say that I knew you. To be able to say that I witnessed your light. That I was here for your kindness. That I have been touched by your decency and purity and love._

_I’m not worthy of it._

_Of you._

_Of that smile that makes all the love songs make sense and the lines of poetry ring true._

_I guess for now, all I can do is revel in the time we’ve had and will have, enjoy the present moment, live for today…_

Hawkeye felt a tear building in the corner of his eye; what he was feeling overwhelming him and filling every fiber of his being. The surgeon sucked in a shaky breath, his heart all but bursting with what he was about to write down.

What he was about to admit for the very first time.

_I can never…never thank you enough for bringing that light back into my life. For saving me. Whereas the world before was black and white, muted and boring and lifeless, now it is bursting with color; a vibrant painting with swirling hues and soulful shades. The deepest and brightest explosions that steal my breath away._

_You showed me there was still hope in this world._

_And for that, Beej…_

_There’s nothing else left to say except this…_

“Captain? Captain Pierce?”

Hawkeye jumped at the sound of a voice from the doorway, smacking his head against the table he was underneath. He rubbed at the growing bump with one hand and quickly shoved the pages into his jacket pocket with the other hand.

He never got a chance to write those three words that he wanted more than anything to say.

“Yo?”

“A jeep’s here for you, sir. The new surgeons just arrived, so you’re headed back to the 4077th.”

It took a moment for the words to process, but once they did, Hawkeye threw a grateful nod towards the soldier. He was leaving. He was going back.

Relief, and an urgent need to put as much distance between himself and the constant bombardment of enemy shells, quickened his movements. He did have that nasty habit of self-preservation.

The jeep ride was bumpy and the cold air nipped at his nose and ears, chilling any exposed skin. But Hawkeye didn’t care. He was alive. And he was going back to the closest thing to home he’d found over here.

Slipping a gloved hand into his pocket, Hawkeye felt the crinkling of pages.

Pages he had penned with a desperate need. A sated urge to die an honest man.

Maybe he should throw them out of the jeep right now; they would float and fly to some obscure corner of the country where they could do no harm.

Or maybe he should burn them the minute he got back to camp, hiding his secrets in flame and smoke.

Or maybe…maybe he’d keep them.

Hide them away.

Never to be sent or shared. Just…existing. A testament to the man he’d thought about when his life had hung in the balance, as his existence teetered precariously on the edge of a knife. A rushed reflection of his heart, his desire. Incomplete though it was.

As icy wind whipped his greying hair, snaking between his clothes and setting a chill into his bones, Hawkeye smiled.

He smiled because he was thinking about seeing _his_ smile again. Seeing him smile _for_ him again. And though the letter was missing three important words, it still rang true.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *squeals* Thoughts? Liking it? Update coming soon!


	3. love is touching souls

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> B.J. finds himself awestruck by Hawkeye's hands.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> title from "A Case of You" by Joni Mitchell
> 
> fic inspo: https://bjhunnicutt.tumblr.com/post/178744827267 
> 
> (but there is a severe lack of gifs of hawkeye's hands...and I think this needs to be fixed...immediately...)

“And then you’ll never guess what Billy did…”

B.J. watched as Hawkeye poured a drink from the still, hearing but not paying close attention to the story he was telling him. His eyes seemed to gravitate towards his tentmate’s hands, fixating on them, watching the way Hawkeye tilted a glass and gesticulated to emphasize something important he’d said.

“He took one look at the cadaver and…”

B.J. couldn’t even pretend to be listening anymore. Like a moth to a flame, all of a sudden the only things he could see were those _hands_ ; there was nothing else in the whole world. Time itself seemed to slow. Surroundings blurred, sounds ceased.

_Those hands are like a perfectly choreographed ballet; they dive and dance through the air, flitting and twisting, the curve of his fingertips mesmerizing, his delicate wrists pure poetry. Subtle and light, like the edges of a flower petal, smooth as a raindrop or a fresh morning dew. They are welcoming and warm, as chaotic as a summer storm and as expansive as a starry sky._

_They have cradled life. They have cheated death. They have healed and restored and saved. They have ripped men back from the brink of fatality, unfailing and unyielding, when the night had been darkest and all hope seemed lost._

_They are strong, capable hands._

God, how he craved their touch...

_Is it even possible to fall in love with someone’s hands?_

B.J. wasn’t so sure. He’d never truly considered them sensual or desirable or beautiful on anyone else; but hands can say…so much.

_They are hands that tell stories. The places he’s been, people he’s met, lives he’s led. They hold secrets, secrets I wish more than anything I could uncover. I ache to trace the lines on those hands, traveling the winding path of Hawkeye’s life with delicate strokes._

_They are utilitarian and methodical._

_They are frivolous and coy._

_They are teasing and exacting._

_They stoke an overwhelming passion in me that threatens to shoot out of my fingertips and engulf every filament of my existence. I feel like bursting with unquenchable desire..._

When he would lie awake at night, finally left alone with his thoughts, B.J. liked to imagine the feel of those hands. Caressing his check, tousling his hair, brushing his arm, splayed against the small of his back. Every inch of his skin thrumming, aching to be touched.

B.J. was a man traversing a desert wasteland, begging for relief. He was a ship cast out at sea, wishing for a beacon of light. He was lost amidst an impenetrable forest, praying for deliverance.

With one touch Hawkeye could unravel him, rouse him, rescue him.

How would that contact feel if there was intent behind it?

If Hawkeye was feeling the same overpowering things he was?

In such a world, it would be akin to a whisper of wind across B.J.'s bare skin, sending shivers down his spine and stealing the breath from his lungs. Or it might be more like the scorching heat of a midday sun, licking his flesh with warmth and passion and longing. A caress as gentle as a spring dawn. A touch as feather-like as a sigh… 

Oh, how B.J. marveled at those hands. They could touch, excite, enthrall, tease, and torment. Truly, he could not explain his fascination. There was something mysterious about those hands, an unknown in the slimness of those fingers, a tantalizing question in the curve of those palms. 

Whenever Hawkeye’s hand brushed his, he felt a blazing intensity that raged within him. It was like an electric shock to his system; every nerve end fraying, every cell pulsating. He craved those brief moments. He desired, more deeply than he believed possible, to _feel_ those hands. 

_The playful nudges and friendly jabs just aren’t enough. I want more. I want to feel the immeasurable depth of Hawkeye through his touch; I want to feel how his unbridled passion and zest for life and fervent urgency exude from those beautiful fingertips. There is a whole other level I haven’t yet reached with him; a mystery, a secret room, a hidden doorway through which I beg to be let in._

_I crave something more..._

A doctor, especially a surgeon, pays close attention to hands. They are the means with which they can save lives; they are their tools, their linchpin. Without them they are nothing. Hands were such a simple thing, basic in their construct; natural, common.

And yet Hawkeye’s could transfix him. Hypnotize him. With every movement, B.J. was entranced. It was like watching a master at work, a performer of tactile precision, an entertainer of fingertips and palms and knuckles. A mesmerizing dance of power and grace.

He hated the hours in OR when those hands were confined into the sterilized white gloves, forced to mechanically cut and stitch and clamp and save. Those hands were the hands of an artist; they should be free and unencumbered, employed only to love, to create—not to be covered in blood and wrapped around the cool steel of a scalpel.

_Maybe instead they should be wrapped up in my hands. Held the way they should be held. Cherished and valued for more than just a surgeon’s tools. They should be on my skin, not cutting or clamping, but griping and stroking._

B.J. yearned to be touched. Caressed. He wanted Hawkeye to trace every peak and valley on his body, memorize every line on his skin; every scar brushed by the lightest of touches. He craved to be held, embraced.

_I just know that my cheek would fit perfectly in the palm of Hawkeye’s hand…_

Goosebumps swept across B.J.’s arms at the thought.

After taking a large sip from his hefty belt, Hawkeye stretched out B.J.’s drink towards him. The movement snapped the Californian out of his reverie. Color rose in his cheeks, and he hoped that this was not one of those times that Hawkeye knew exactly what he was thinking. Instead of gazing into those angelic blue eyes, and not possessing the courage to meet that undoubtedly intense stare, B.J. kept his gaze on the offered drink.

Hawkeye's long fingers were curved around the neck of the glass almost nonchalantly, his grip lax. The drink fit into his hand like a key into a lock; as if it was meant to be there, existing within the beautiful confines of his thumb and forefinger.

Never before had B.J. found himself envious of a martini glass.

Until now.

B.J.’s breathing hitched, quite noticeably, as Hawkeye’s fingers brushed his with the passing of the drink. The older surgeon didn’t say anything, or even seem to acknowledge it had occurred. But for B.J. it was like the shock of jumping into a frigid lake, the wild ecstasy of coasting down the hilly streets of San Francisco with his feet not on the brake pedals; overpowered by a wanton _need_ for that touch to last just a moment longer. 

As Hawkeye reclined back on his cot, now finished with the wild regaling of a memory from med school, B.J. took a gulp from his glass and reached for some paper.

This was a really terrible idea. Especially since this time he wasn’t alone. The first note had been tempting fate, but this? This was idiotic. Reckless. Rash. Brazen.

_Should I really do this while Hawkeye is still here?_

Before he could talk himself out of it, he snatched up a pencil, trying to remember the cacophony of thoughts that had left him aroused and breathless. B.J.’s eyes fixated on Hawkeye…well, more specifically his hands. Their beauty etched vividly into his mind, the lithe fingers, the coaxing touch.

For the second time, B.J. began to write.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you guys liked it! Comments/kudos always appreciated. Update coming soon!


	4. merely touching you is enough

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hawkeye can't sleep. He decides maybe it's time for another letter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> title from "Whoever You Are Holding Me Now in Hand" by Walt Whitman
> 
> fic inspo: https://ithappensoffstage.tumblr.com/post/627726323841941504/when-you-share-the-horror-that-we-do-day-in-and + https://hunnislutt.tumblr.com/post/622272131538010112/

Hawkeye was unfortunately awake, the thoughts in his head much too loud to let him escape into the safe confines of unconsciousness.

It wasn’t as if he didn’t try. 

He tossed. 

And he turned. 

On his back. 

His stomach.

And each side twice. 

But to no avail. 

With a sigh, Hawkeye flicked on the light over his bunk, resigned that tonight would once again be a night without sleep.

_Why sleep when you have the time? When there’s no wounded or threats of bugging out or other normal shenanigans? On the first night of peace in ages, why oh why should I find rest an easy conquest?_

The surgeon was tempted for a moment to pour a healthy dose of gin, his usual remedy for just about every bother, worry, twinge, or care.

After a beat, he decided against it. Coffee would be a better, smarter choice than alcohol; even though he usually avoided any and all wise decisions like the plague. As quietly as he could, he snatched a semi-clean mug from atop the stove and dumped the last dregs of the coffee into the cup. It was bitter, and tasted worse than he remembered, but at least it was warm.

A chill had begun to cling to the night air, signaling the end of fall in Korea. The few short weeks of temperate temperatures were winding down so the clutches of winter could wrap the country in frigid blasts of snow and sleet. 

Since his return from battalion aid last week, the 4077th had been swamped with casualties of all kinds, barely a moment's rest between the waves to get a bite of uneatable mess food or catch a few unsatisfying hours of sleep.

This was their first real break, and of course, of _course_ Hawkeye couldn’t succumb to his bone-deep weariness.

Blinking tiredly, he glanced down at the time on his watch. The blurry face and small numbers cruelly reminded him that he’d have to replace Charles in post-op in a couple of hours.

_No rest for the wicked._

Pulling on the worn gray sweater that reminded him of home, Hawkeye drained the last of his coffee and decided to write a letter to his dad. He settled back against his pillow, pad of paper and pencil in hand. It was a routine he’d gone through many times, sitting exactly in this spot, bundled in this sweater, same paper in his grip.

_Dear Dad-_

Hawkeye paused, twiddling the pencil around his fingers. 

Without meaning to, his dark eyes traveled from the blank page over to the sleeping form of his roommate, the last thing he’d written, hurried and frantic and fearful, dancing through his mind.

Those worn pieces of paper were still concealed between the pages of a book Hawkeye knew Charles nor B.J. would ever open. They were hidden, they were safe.

Maybe, in the stillness of the early morning hours, quite alone and regrettably _awake_ , he could write another letter. Not as rushed. With the time and care put into it that his muse deserved.

Hawkeye felt a devilish smile spread across his face. He’d had an incredibly indecent thought, doing more to warm him than the blanket he was burrowed under.

Scratching out the first words he’d written, Hawkeye began his letter again, this time meant for a very different person and with a very different message…

_It’s finally cold out, but I’m used to nights like this. You, however, are not. As no true Californian ever could be for this kind of winter. This will be your first in Korea, and boy are you in for a rude awakening._

_Today you decided that exercise was going to help you stay warm. I grumbled and groaned good-naturedly as I do, needling you about the uselessness of physical activity. But can I tell you a secret? All that joking and ribbing and laughing was intentional, purposeful. My shield against anything and everything. I used it today as a method of distraction, something to occupy my mind, so that I wouldn’t be focused on you._

_In just a t-shirt and shorts._

_A sheen of sweat clinging to your exposed skin._

_Chest heaving with exertion._

_Hints of red blooming on your cheeks and painting the tops of your ears._

_It definitely hadn’t felt too cold._

_I had to tell myself not to stare or ogle or linger. Not because of any sort of objectification but because of an openly worshipful fascination._

_You, B.J. Hunnicutt, are my inverse. I am awkward and gangly, you are solid and smooth. I am flighty and mercurial, you are constant and grounded. I am uncoordinated and unathletic, you are powerful, with muscles to spare…_

_I had a point to this._

_I did._

_But I’m not surprised it escaped me; any time you enter my thoughts, I am consumed and whatever I had been planning or pondering floats away like smoke on the wind. Thinking of you always make me forget like there is anything else on earth. All of a sudden, it’s just…you. Only you._

_This afternoon, as you completed push up after push up, seeming never to tire or need to stop, I tried not to look, but I couldn’t help myself. I’m indulgent and provocative, I won’t deny it. I’m hoping you didn’t notice me glancing down at you past the knitting needles and yarn in my hands. I watched the muscles in your arms and back rippling with exertion, straining under your incessant pace. It was a hypnotic rhythm, transfixing me, capturing my attention. I didn’t want to-I couldn’t-look away…_

Hawkeye cleared his throat, warmth creeping delicately up his neck. For the second time in a few short hours, the chill of the air was met by the heat surging off Hawkeye’s skin.

_It shouldn’t surprise you how deeply enraptured I am by your body and your feel and your very essence. Physical touch has not been unprecedented between us. If I’m not leaning on you, you’re leaning on me. You tossing an arm over my shoulder. Me nudging you at the mess table. Moments, burned into my memory, that I never want to forget…_

_You know, I can still remember the way your forearm felt beneath my palm, the pressure of your fingers grounding me. It was one of the worst days I’d ever had and I didn’t want you to let go. You felt so strong and certain and real, a harsh contrast to the loathing and doubt that overwhelmed me that night. I hadn’t meant what I’d said. Even if you’ve forgiven me, I haven’t forgiven myself for the vitriol I’d spouted in that fit of anger. When nothing else made sense, your hand on my arm, my hand griping yours, was all I needed._

_I have good memories too._

_I remember finding you in the Swamp, relaying the news about your kidney patient. Watching as unabashed joy washed over your face, the tent bursting alight with your infectious excitement and relief. I could feel it as you wrapped your arms around me. Holding me tight against your chest. Your smile so big nothing else in the world mattered. Your hands fiercely latching around my arms. Your breath whispering in my ear._

_I crave to have your arms around me again. I have spent too few moments within the intoxicating safety of them so far._

_I yearn to be close to you. To do all we’ve done before._

_Running a finger along your lax jaw..._

_Your head nuzzling against me on the bench…_

_Sitting so close there is not a hint of space between us, legs and arms brushing..._

_But I want more. I want to do more._

_I need more._

_I want to run my fingers through your feathery hair until they settle to brush softly at the base of your neck._

_I want to fall asleep next to you, your head fitting perfectly underneath my chin, my hand tracing lithe circles over your chest._

_I want to be near you, to tempt you and tease you, to hear your breath hitch and eyes widen with desire…_

“Hawk? Whatcha doing up?”

B.J.’s sleepy voice surprising him, Hawkeye panickily pressed the pad of paper to his chest. He’s sure he looked just like a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar. Eyes darting across the tent, he saw B.J. blinking sluggishly, bathed in the warm light from his lamp.

_Well big shot, let’s talk our way out of this one, and quickly. _

After a beat of silence, Hawkeye let out a forced laugh. He tried desperately to keep his response even toned, so as to not betray the wanton longing pulsating beneath his skin.

“You know me, I can’t sleep unless I’m being disrupted by Radar yelling choppers every few hours. An uninterrupted night’s rest? Ha! I can’t even remember what one of those feels like. Although usually, you wouldn’t find me complaining because you wouldn’t find me alone…”

Slackening the scarf around his neck, astutely aware of the increase in his core temperature and the newfound snugness of his shorts, Hawkeye waggled his eyebrows and fixed B.J. with his most disarming smile.

“While you’ve been wasting precious time sleeping, I’ve been writing an absolutely _filthy_ letter to General MacArthur. He never responded to the pictures I sent him and I can’t have him going and forgetting me now.”

B.J.’s only reply was a short grunt of amusement. Too tired to dalliance with any measurable wit, the Californian gave a little wave of his hand before rolling away from Hawkeye, once again chasing the vestiges of sleep.

Hawkeye waited until B.J.’s breathing evened back out before letting a heavy sigh escape his lips. He swallowed thickly, the paper in his hands seeming much heavier than before.

“Typical,” Hawkeye muttered under his breath, too quiet for his roommate to hear. _Typical. Hiding easily within shadows of the truth, concealing yourself in doubletalk and excuses._

At the bottom of the page, Hawkeye scribbled one last sentence:

_Nothing is so oppressive as a secret._

In a cruel way, this had been the mantra of his life. Existing along the edges, never revealing too much, having to be careful with what he said and who he was with. And it was wearing mighty thin. It hadn’t been so overtly oppressive until he’d fallen head over heels for his tall drink of water, equal parts soft and sultry, best friend.

_Don’t forget married. And baby makes three._

Rising on shaky legs, the surgeon folded up the scribbled pages and placed them in the same hiding spot as his first letter, careful that no one was walking by and B.J.’s back was still turned. Staring at the worn cover of the book, Hawkeye whispered the same line that had tormented him, ravaged him, plagued him since meeting B.J. Hunnicutt.

“Nothing is so oppressive as a secret.”

Hawkeye knew this for certain.

He also knew, with longing cruelly, _torturously_ bubbling in his chest and turning his knees to jelly, that he’d need to spend some quality time in a cold shower before relieving Charles in post-op.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you guys liked it! Comments/kudos always appreciated. Update coming soon!


	5. do not take from me your laughter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> B.J. writes frantically, a brief moment alone consumed by a need to express all he is feeling. But this time, it doesn't go exactly as planned...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> title taken from a gorgeous Pablo Neruda poem ("Your Laughter")
> 
> ("let me drown in your laughter" was the runner up title, taken from the same John Denver song as the fic title!)
> 
> fic inspo from: https://catsiel.tumblr.com/post/146963590262/hawkeye-mcintryes-infectious-laugh + https://mashgay.tumblr.com/post/179530933326/40-seconds-of-just-alan-alda-laughing
> 
> if you have never experienced alan alda's laugh, then you are missing out on a real gem (hard to believe you've gotten this far in the MASH AO3 fics without some idea of how wonderful that laugh is). but seriously, treat yourselves to the fic inspo above. do it.

B.J. scribbled furiously. He had to get it down, get it all down, before he lost any of it.

This was not his…best idea.

_Why does it seem like all I’m ever having are bad ideas?_ _Must be the alcohol poisoning. Or the long-term effects of army food._

Yet this was his third time. Each time he’d told himself what a terrible plan it was but he did it anyway. Not to mention if he was caught, if anyone found these, no explanation would sound believable or true.

_God forbid Hawkeye ever found them. That would be bad…right…very bad. Unthinkable._

The first one he’d made had been a semi-unplanned accident. Writing, he’d decided, would be a welcome outlet, he just hadn’t had the luxury of privacy or the kindling of inspiration. Until one evening, when he was somewhere far away in his mind, he finally did. B.J. had been expertly crafting symphonic sentences, adjectives and imagery and metaphors, painting an enchanting picture with his thoughts. Lost in the rosy hues of a day dream, lulled and caressed by an intoxicating idea—those words had just begged to be written. And so, he had finally taken out a blank piece of paper and a pencil, this time not with the intention of writing Peg, and set his plan into action.

Putting the tiniest bit of weight on the pencil, B.J. had paused. Second-guessed himself for a brief flicker of a moment. No, this was _not_ the brightest, most intelligent, or sanest plan. But he pushed aside the nagging insecurities that swirled in his mind and began to write. He wrote and he wrote and he wrote until all the drops of his muse had been drunk, all energy of his inspiration had been spent. There it was, in all its entirety: four hand-written, feverishly scribbled chicken-scratch-on-a-good-day, pages.

Stopped a bit hastily so that he wouldn’t divulge too much. The solution he had been searching for, one for a release, a channeling of his inner turmoil, a fledgling success. One writing down; a liberation assuaging his expressive need.

He had hidden away this first letter, in a spot only he would find. Took great pains to write it when he was alone, to keep it out of sight; shoving it beneath his pillow at the barest hint of a sound.

B.J. had folded it and unfolded it so many times to read by a dim light that the paper was beginning to wear at the creases and some of the markings were smudged. Yet he couldn’t help himself. He had the sneaking suspicion that he was doing this almost _to_ get caught. Daring the universe. Walking a tightrope of trepidation. Playing with fire, knowing all too well that he would get burned.

The second one had been wholeheartedly intentional. A successful successive attempt to convey his emotions in a secretive manner.

He’d taken less care with it. Had written it when Hawkeye had still been in the room. Gin swirling in his veins, bolstering his confidence, B.J. began to write as Hawkeye lounged languidly on his cot, hand encircled around a half-full martini glass. After finishing a long-winded story, the dark-haired surgeon had made a wisecrack about the ceaseless stream of letters B.J. seemed to be writing home, but the Californian just gave him a small smile and carried on.

Letting Hawkeye believe this was just another letter.

But knowing it to be so much more.

That one had taken him quite a bit longer to get out, seeing as he had an audience. He couldn’t recline unhurriedly in his imagination, face revealing the sensuality of his musings. Especially not when Hawkeye was sitting so close and the man kept making jokes about his newest letter to Peggy. B.J. had had to school his features, averting his eyes from where they constantly found their way to Hawkeye’s face. Tracing along his swollen lower lip, the curve of his cheekbones, taking in the temptation of his long neck, the delicacy of his fingers.

It was a dangerous game to play. Tempting fate. Courting disaster. Chancing, treading, gambling. Putting everything on the line, and for what? A few scrawled words on a page.

Those words, exuding with love and lust and desire, were not about his wife.

A dangerous game, indeed. Risking, jeopardizing it all. Weighing everything he had for the chance at an unknown. Hoping that one day, Hawkeye might be perusing through his possessions and stumble across this stack of unsent letters. Well, maybe not letters exactly, but writings nonetheless.

Descriptions.

Stories.

Love notes.

Words B.J. had painstakingly chosen. Flowery language and poetic prose. Fantasies he had indulged in, illusions he had savored like sweet nectar on his tongue. They were odes, testaments. Pieces dedicated with affection, penned with yearning.

If they were discovered, Hawkeye would find that this bundle of stationary was all about him.

The things that B.J. loved about him.

The things that B.J. wished he could say to him.

But never would.

And now, here he was, frantically transcribing the jumbled thoughts in his brain while Charles was in the mess tent and Hawkeye was in the shower. His third of god knows how many installments in the series of notes that he’d never send to Hawkeye. Would never show him or tell him or reveal to him.

Well, probably never.

A delicate smile graced his features as he flipped to a new page…

_Hawk,_

_Your laugh is one of my favorite things about you. It’s one of those funny things that I struggle to put into words. The last two pieces I’ve written, about your eyes and your hands, seemed so easy to describe. Because those are things I can see. Images that flood and fill my dreams. But your laugh? It’s as indescribable as the most gorgeous notes that sing from a weeping violin. Or the sheer wonder that is a wave crashing on the sand. Or wind whispering through golden leaves on a rainy autumn day. I would sooner attempt to put into words a piece by Tchaikovsky, Mozart, or Beethoven...and fall understandably, woefully short._

_It…it makes me whole._

_Without any effort at all, it can lift my spirits, pick me up and dust me off and send me unfailingly on my way. It is infectious, raucous, voracious. When that sound escapes your parted lips, a radiant smile on your face, I am left speechless. It blocks out everything else around me until there is only you. You and that perfectly bombastic, boisterous laugh._

_How can a simple laugh make me feel so much?_

_How is it possible for such a perfect sound to exist on this earth?_

_It is loud and gaudy and riotous. It is so wonderfully irresistible, filling up a room from the floorboards, to the ceiling, to the four corners. Wrapping me in warmth and delight, saturating my soul with bliss. When you laugh, and your blue eyes meet mine, nothing else matters. I am the most important person in the world and you are laughing just for me._

_It’s a ride that everyone wants to be on, a thrilling journey of guffawing excitement and roaring exuberance. The kind of sound where everyone who hears it knows it’s something special. A blithe example of the innocence and purity and loveliness that everyone wants to protect in this world. It’s a splash of color on a blank canvas, a knockout blow, the exultant crash of cymbals._

_It sounds just like riding a Ferris Wheel when you were a kid. Climbing up to the top of the world, the wind in your hair, joy in your heart, grinning from ear to ear, feeling like you could fly. Nothing could bring you down. Nothing could touch you up there. No worries or cares or responsibilities, just you and the sky and the clouds and the stars and life itself._

_Whenever I hear it, I can’t help but smile._

_I will never forget the first time I heard your laugh. It was only a handful of hours after stepping off of the plane in Seoul, stumbling drunk and delirious out of Rosie’s bar. I was taken in, I was overwhelmed. Three sheets to the wind and yet that laugh is seared into my memory with a hot iron. I hadn’t heard anything like it anywhere else. It was the most flawless thing in the whole world to hear on one of the worst days of my life; standing in the doorway of that dingy bar, the smell of dirt and war haunting the air, mud all over my uniform and an uncontrollable fit of giggles passing between us like an unending tennis match. I was hooked. I was high. I needed that laugh._

_Never growing tired of hearing it, craving the way it infuses into my soul and snatches me back from the darkness. Yearning for it when you go up to battalion aid. Begging to catch it across the camp, floating atop the breeze. Saving me from the horrors of this place._

_I need that laugh. As much as I need you…_

The crash of the Swamp door closing made B.J. jump. He dropped the papers in his hand, the book he had been writing against, and his pencil, scattering them haphazardly over his cot and the floor. Surging upward, he snatched hurriedly at the mess.

“Well, well, well. Someone’s on edge. You sending an indecent letter to Peg, Beej? Please, don’t stop on my account!”

Waving a hand dismissively, eyes rolling in annoyance, B.J. collected the last of the papers from the floor, folding them neatly and stowing them beneath his pillow. He’d have to finish later.

He wasn’t feeling nearly as daring as he had the last time, not when Hawkeye had caught him staring and had shot him a bemused smirk. Color rising in his cheeks, B.J. had decided that writing these letters was enough of a risk without having Hawkeye in the room while he did so.

B.J. leaned back nonchalantly on his cot, eyes tracing Hawkeye’s movements across the Swamp.

“Save any hot water for me?”

Hawkeye shook his head, a mischievous glint in his eye.

“Nope. But I did save you a nurse in the last stall.”

B.J. tried to smother the smile that pulled at the corners of his mouth as he crossed his hands behind his head and relaxed back into his pillow. He still had images of Hawkeye swirling in his mind. Throwing his head back laughing…the animated, gleeful grin on his face…the way his whole body seemed to be intently focused on the joy he was feeling and making sure everyone else was feeling it, too…

To distract himself from thoughts he definitely shouldn’t be having, B.J. asked Hawkeye about the mess tent, wondering if they were brave enough to face whatever was being served for dinner. The two swapped jabs back and forth, a funny pun here, a quippy joke there. B.J. was so focused on not thinking about Hawkeye’s laugh, and most definitely _not_ thinking about how incredible Hawkeye looked in his red robe and soaking wet hair, that he didn’t notice the last page of his letter lying partially hidden beneath Hawkeye’s cot. The page that was almost entirely blank, and wouldn’t be much cause for concern, except for the one line that read:

_I need that laugh. As much as I need you…_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> dun dun dun, a cliffhanger...which I hardly ever do but I couldn't help myself this time! hope you all enjoyed, update coming soon!


	6. the course of true love never did run smooth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Someone unexpected finds the missing page. Who would have thought one sheet of paper could be so troublesome?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> title taken from Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream"
> 
> sorry for the update delay, just a quick chapter this time!

Charles Emerson Winchester III was, in a word, cold.

Freezing.

Chilled.

_Bloody ice in my veins_. _Curse this despicable country_.

It existed in extremes. The far outskirts of a pendulum’s swing. So very unlike the springs and falls of Massachusetts, Korea firmly jumped between the hottest summers to the most frigid of winters.

And winter was just around the corner, now.

Wind whipped up in a frenzy, assaulting their tents with a fury, spiraling the dust into their eyes, and slicing through their much too thin uniforms. Snow, rain, hail, sleet all fell, covering the camp in a bone-deep chill they just couldn’t shake.

It would be charitable to say Charles was used to this sort of weather, hailing from New England and all. But there he was outfitted with the warmest, coziest, sleekest winter garb money could procure. Here…well here he was not so fortunate.

Stomping his feet to coax some warmth back into his frozen digits, Charles burrowed deeper into his coat. He sat rigidly on his cot, drawing upon images of kindling fires, the warming power of an aged scotch, his irreplaceable fur-lined gloves…

A gust of wintry air tore at the exterior of the Swamp sending a shiver down Charles’ spine.

No amount of caviar, British poetry, or classical music would make him feel better. He still had some time before he’d have to sit through another mind-numbing post-op shift, which sounded just a smidge better than having to perform surgery in these barbaric conditions. 

Resigned to brave the quickly worsening weather in search of some warm coffee, Charles got to his feet. As he turned towards the door, something caught his eye.

A piece of paper partially obscured beneath Pierce’s cot.

Quirking up an eyebrow in amused curiosity, the surgeon shuffled across the tent and bent down. It must have been dropped unknowingly, the writer obviously not missing the page. _How childish, really. Infantile. Why concern yourself with a piece of paper?_

Maybe it was boredom, maybe it was an urge to hopefully find something to needle his roommate with, but whatever the motivation, Charles snatched up the discovery eagerly. The first side was blank.

_Boring_.

Flipping it over, Charles read the lone sentence. And then he read it again. His mind couldn’t quite decipher just what this paper, with this sentence, was doing underneath Pierce’s bed. It didn’t make a bit of sense…

Brow knit in confusion, Charles was so intently focused on those ten words he didn’t even realize someone else was in the Swamp until Hawkeye’s voice sounded right next to him, making him jump.

“Charles, tsk tsk tsk. I would have never guessed you’d have _snooped_ so low!”

The Bostonian straightened back up, composing himself. Couldn’t give Pierce the satisfaction of seeing him astonished, surprised, or having successfully guessed he had sticky fingers. That was not the Winchester way.

“Aha. Pierce. I was not _snooping_. I was merely…returning _this_ to its rightful owner.”

At saying “this”, Charles held out the paper he’d found, passing it towards Hawkeye. The dark-haired surgeon threw him a snarky grin and snatched the page with a gloved hand.

“If you wanted to read my dirty letter all you had to do was ask, Chuck.”

The quippy comment elicited a strong eye roll and sour expression in response. _And with that, I think I will take my leave of this distasteful situation._ Head held high, and with more dignity than he believed he had, Charles made for the door.

“Pierce.”

At the farewell murderous glance sent his way, Hawkeye waggled his fingers. 

“Buh-bye, Charles.”

The older man snorted disdainfully. He pushed open the Swamp door and, mind still toying with the meaning of those ten words, ventured out into the chilly afternoon.

Hawkeye yanked his cap down further over his ears, shivering. The weather had turned quicker than he expected, less than a few weeks of what could charitably be called “fall” before winter came creeping in. Collapsing onto his cot, the surgeon cursed this stinking, lousy, cold country.

And then he remembered the paper in his hand.

Flattening it back out from where he’d crumbled it in his efforts to stay warm, Hawkeye believed it to be an old letter from his dad, or possibly just a blank sheet dropped by one of them when pacing the Swamp. A brief flicker of fear passed through him, worried that he’d dropped one of the pages he’d written about B.J. in one of his many re-readings of his previous two letters.

  
The reality was much different than anything he could have intelligibly determined. It was one page, mostly blank. Ten small words adorned the top, scrawled semi-legibly.

_I need that laugh. As much as I need you._

“Huh...” Hawkeye mused, flipping the paper every which way to see if there was some uncovered message or detail he might have missed. But, no. All it was, was one sheet with one sentence.

_Who was the author, though?_

Hawkeye knew it wasn’t his, although it was uncharacteristically reminiscent of the two emotive writings he himself had penned in secret. It couldn’t be Charles because he had given the page to Hawkeye, seeming as if he’d never seen it before in his life.

That left B.J.

_B.J.?_

_Well, in the immortal words of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle: Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth. Probably just another letter to Peg. Gotta be._

If he had a deerstalker hat and Calabash pipe, he’d be all set to track down the “Mystery of the Lost Page”, starring the incomparable Basil Rathbone.

But this was truly no great mystery that required the expertise of Sherlock Holmes. It was obviously just a misplaced part of a letter, one B.J. had written to Peg, with all the yearning and aching that accompanied a man geographically separated from his wife and newborn child. Hawkeye sighed, folding the lone piece of paper and holding it tightly in his hand.

It took only one reading to memorize the ten words.

Ten words written by the man he was wholeheartedly in love with, written for someone else.

A small, unrealistic part of him wished that those words were about him. But B.J. couldn’t— _wouldn’t_ —write this about _his_ laugh. No chance. Not a one.

For reasons that escaped him, maybe wishful thinking most of all, Hawkeye slipped that piece of paper into the pocket of his overcoat. And, getting quickly to his feet, he decided he’d pay his favorite roommate a visit during his post-op shift. After a drink or two first.

  
  


Head bent into the oncoming wind, Hawkeye decided that the alcohol hadn’t done nearly enough to warm his stiff fingers and shivering extremities. Maybe the three belts he’d knocked back had had little to no effect, but the loudspeakers subsequently calling about incoming wounded sent his blood rushing and heart racing. The chill that had permeated his bones dissipated with the urgency of the message and with his quick sprint to meet the arriving buses.

He’d caught B.J.’s eye, as the Californian was leaning over a kid with a nasty belly wound. The usually cheery surgeon gave him a tight nod of acknowledgement as he moved on to check the next soldier, squatting down next to a new litter. Hawkeye felt himself sighing at realizing B.J.’s severe lack of layers.

_Damn idiot. Ran out of post-op without his coat. Not that he doesn’t look great in just his tight pink long sleeve, but it really is too cold out here for just that..._

After relaying instructions to Margaret about the priority of the chest case he was examining, Hawkeye sloughed off his overcoat and tossed it over B.J.’s shoulders.

“Don’t say I never did anything for you!” Hawkeye scolded without any real heat, throwing a toothy grin over his shoulder and heading for pre-op.

“Oh, my savior! I’ll be right behind you Hawk,” B.J. yelled after him, relishing in the warmth of his newly acquired coat. It did wonders shutting out the biting wind from where it had torn and yanked at his thin shirt.

_Who said chivalry was dead,_ the Californian thought, unable to keep the simple gesture from putting a smile on his face.

After finishing his assessments and establishing the order for surgeries, B.J. stood back up, shoving his arms through and zipping up the jacket. _One bus down, one to go. Gunna be a long night_. He watched as Margaret ran over to a newly arriving bus, barking orders the whole way. Charles and Potter were hastening towards pre-op, undoubtedly joining Hawkeye in another episode of “How Many Kids Can We Save Tonight?”; the only cruel, bloody show in town.

B.J. suppressed a shiver, taking a brief second to enjoy the relief from the added layer. He burrowed deep into the safety of the coat and shoved his ungloved hands into the pockets.

His hand brushed some paper, but he didn’t think anything of it. Instead he hastened over to greet the second bus of wounded, now better prepared for the freezing wind, and none the wiser about the folded page inside the pocket of Hawkeye’s coat.


	7. i could drink a case of you

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They say the worst distance between two people is misunderstanding.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> title taken from A Case of You by Joni Mitchell
> 
> m u c h angstier than I had planned, and much longer to update than anticipated. sorry! hope you all enjoy!

**_2:41 AM_ **

B.J. tilted the martini glass to drain the last of the nose-curling gin, feeling its dregs rake hotly down his throat.

He was numb. He felt numb.

And not just from the cold.

Charles was pretending to read in the corner. No matter how many times he tried, his eyes kept jumping up to appraise his incredibly agitated roommate. Much to his chagrin, he realized that he’d reread the same stanza of his Keats poem too many times to count. _It wasn’t concern_ , Charles thought stubbornly, _because I am not emotionally attached to these people…it’s more…flagrant curiosity_. _Always good to be in the know, as it were._ Humming quietly to himself, he recaptured his air of nonchalance, portraying a perfect persona of disinterest.

He flipped the page, keeping up the appearance of reading, as he observed B.J. from the edge of his vision. The lanky surgeon refilled his cup once again; chasing the welcoming embrace of intoxication, crawling towards the safety of ignorance, a crumbled piece of paper in his white-knuckled grip…

**_12 hours earlier…_ **

**_2:17 PM_ **

_The second bus had all been civilians._

_Civilian casualties were always the worst. Too often the 4077 th found themselves too goddamn busy trying to repair too many unthinkable injuries inflicted upon innocent bystanders deemed by both sides as acceptable collateral damage. _

_All these people. Collateral. Damage._

_Between setting broken bones, resecting intestines, irrigating wounds, and acting as a human metal detector for the most elusive bits of shrapnel, B.J. recognized a painful truth: instead of the nausea that usually accompanied civilian casualties, what he was feeling now was…numb._

_What had Hawkeye said to him when he’d first arrived?_

_“The worst part is you’ll get used to all this.”_

_It only took him a few months but he’d done it. A few months of participating in this bloody, destructive police action to get used to the death and the madness and the frustration and the violence. His stomach rolled more at recognizing his own detachment than it had with the seven civilians he had already worked on._

_Calling for a litter, he hated himself for his emotional disinterest._

_And then they’d set a little girl down in front of him._

_B.J. felt his vision greying at the edges, unable to breathe. She couldn’t have been more than three years old. Her clothes were in tatters, blood-stained and covered in dust. The crop of dark hair on her small head was disheveled with bits of rock and dry grass sticking out. She was thankfully unconscious, not currently feeling the cuts and scrapes that littered her tiny frame, the odd angle her left arm was bent at, or the large shrapnel wound to her stomach._

_He couldn’t move. He was rooted in place, staring at a child who had no business being on his table, no business receiving wounds that would leave her scarred for the rest of her life, no business being a victim of this fucking war. The numbness inside of him caught fire, a match to gunpowder. Exploding his earlier indifference into a world of pain and wrongness and hate. Civilians were always the worst, but the children…the children…_

_B.J.’s sudden inaction caught the attention of Margaret, who was assisting him, and Father Mulcahy, who was standing nearby. The hustle and bustle of the OR’s surroundings fell on B.J.’s deaf ears, as did their queries about his wellbeing. The “Doctor?” and “B.J.?” asked by the concerned priest and perturbed nurse drew the focus of a few others in the room._

_Hawkeye glanced up, scalpel poised in his hand._

_Charles cleared his throat._

_Potter paused in applying a cast._

_“Hunnicutt? You alright, son?”_

_A shiver shot down B.J.’s spine, shocking the Californian from his sickened stupor. Sounds from the OR began to filter past the ringing in his ears. He glanced up at Colonel Potter and gave him a slight nod._

_He had work to do._

_B.J. swallowed the lump in his throat and let his training take over silently, doing his best not to look at the young girl’s face. He felt Hawkeye come up behind him, a solidifying presence over his left shoulder._

_“Make sure you resect that.”_

_B.J. turned his head slightly, catching Hawkeye’s eyes over his mask._

_It was normal to give each other help. Friendly advice or assistance was as important to OR operations as blood, gloves, and anesthesia. But Hawkeye’s tone had been emotionless, clipped. It surprised B.J., though he tried not to let that show. If he was ever struggling, the older man would usually make him laugh, would put a comforting hand on his shoulder, or give him that look—that disarming, devilish stare that made B.J. feel like he would be just fine. But not this time. Those blue eyes revealed nothing. They were as cold and clinical as Hawkeye’s words._

_Instead of responding, B.J. just returned his attention to the shrapnel wounds in the little girl’s stomach. Steadfastly ignoring the taste of bile in his mouth and the unspeakable pain that made him wish for the return of his previous numbness._

_Thankfully the girl was going to be alright. She was strong, and it could have been a lot worse. B.J. stepped away from the table, stripping his gloves off, eyes glued to her sleeping face. He heard the clatter of instruments, Margaret’s composed orders to a nurse, Hawkeye harshly asking for suction. But his focus was still on how her body looked much too small on the litter carried by Klinger and another corpsman. As she passed through the OR doors, back to the land of the living, B.J. was once again overcome by that distasteful detached feeling. He was numb again._

**_2:13 AM_ **

_The numbness seemed to have rooted itself into his bones. Though invisible, it weighed heavily, shrouding his mind and slowing his movements. It drowned him dreadfully in weariness and resignation; a cold vice around his heart, a nauseating knot in his gut._

_B.J. was methodical as he changed out of his scrubs, shoving his arms into Hawkeye’s heavy jacket and burrowing into its warmth. He was the first one out; Potter had sent him packing once the flow of casualties lessened, telling him the other three could handle it. He’d given the colonel an appreciative nod, not feeling up to a smile._

_With a resounding thump, B.J. dropped heavily onto the bench and leaned his head back against the wall. Kids were always the hardest, always hit him the hardest. But this “getting used to it” as Hawkeye had warned him…he had sworn and promised on everything he could think of that he would never let himself get there. And yet he had. _

_A drink. That was what he needed. Maybe two. And some incredibly indecent Hawkeye-isms to turn his whole mood around. If Hawkeye was in an okay mood himself, that is._

_Letting his eyes slip shut, B.J. got comfortable, intending to wait for his best friend to get out of surgery. He shoved his chilled hands into the jacket pockets and tucked his chin to chase some semblance of warmth._

_For the second time, fingers brushed a folded piece of paper._

_Not thinking much of it, B.J. brought it out._

_Most likely trash, or an old letter, or-_

_No._

_It couldn’t be._

_“Fuck.”_

The minutes after discovering the page in Hawkeye’s jacket pocket were a blur. Without any memory of the journey there, B.J. found himself back in the Swamp, a heftily poured drink in one hand and the folded paper in the other. He couldn’t focus, he couldn’t breathe. He felt lightheaded and nauseous and confused and too goddamn tired for this.

_Fuck. Just…fuck._

B.J. downed the gin quickly, coughing and spluttering as the sharp acid burned in his mouth, and immediately poured himself another.

He couldn’t believe it. Try as he might, he just couldn’t believe it. B.J. was struggling, speculating, _straining_ to figure out how the last page of his last letter to—no, _about_ —Hawkeye was sitting neatly folded in his roommate’s jacket pocket. And now clenched tightly in his hand.

_Why does he have this?_

_Did he find where I’d hidden the other letters?_

_Did he read any of them? All of them?_

_But why did he just take this page?_

_Why did he take any of the pages?_

_How long has he had this?_

_Why hasn’t he said anything?_

_Did he give me his jacket on purpose so I’d find this?_

_Is he embarrassed? Ashamed? Angry?_

_What the fucking hell is going o-_

“I don’t know what your stomach has done to you, Hunnicutt, but you are truly attempting to achieve a new, brutal level of punishment…”

B.J.’s careening thoughts were snapped back from their rollercoaster ride at the sudden arrival of his roommate, the roommate he actually was _less_ upset with than Hawkeye. _Go figure. There’s a first time for everything..._

His eyes subconsciously rolled themselves at Charles’ unwelcome, and yet always given, condescending opinion. Waltzing into the Swamp, nary a care in the world, the chill not daring to touch him…what an unperturbed and undisturbed pompous ass. The Californian slipped the paper stiffly into his jacket pocket and away from Charles’ keen eye, hand fisted tightly in a futile attempt at maintaining some semblance of control over his ping-ponging thoughts and emotions.

“Oh, you know, just another day in paradise,” B.J. ground out in his roommate’s direction. His annoyed tone thankfully shut the other man up and dissuaded all future attempts at conversation.

_He read the letter. The letter I wrote for him, the page that expressed how much I needed him. He read the letter and didn’t say anything._

Much more forceful than was strictly necessary, B.J. sent the contents of his glass coursing down his throat before refilling it with the alcoholic lighter fluid. At this pace, he’d be drunk in ten minutes. It wouldn’t be much of a challenge to make it seven. The surgeon could feel Charles’ eyes on him, as much as the other man pretended not to be interested in his drive towards drunkenness. B.J. began to pace, lost in the insanity of his thoughts. Ignoring all else around him. The buzz he’d achieved not nearly enough to keep him from boomeranging between numbness and inundation.

At some point he’d removed the piece of paper from his pocket, kneading it thoughtfully in his grip.

Mulling it over. Toying with it. Seeking out an answer.

_He…knows. He knows how I feel. Fuck. He knows and…he hasn’t said anything. He read that I needed him and said nothing. He must hate me._

B.J. was numb from the cold, numb from the surgery, and numb from the gin. Now if only he could numb the surging tidal wave of emotions the discovery of this letter had instigated.

A memory from OR jumped to mind. Hawkeye’s cold words, his emotionless eyes.

_He’d acted…different. He didn’t joke. He didn’t even ask if I was alright. It had to be the letter. Had to be. That's why he was so distant. He read it…and…_

“Aha, what have we here? Started the party without me, Beej?”

Hawkeye’s entrance to the Swamp brought a slice of cold wind whipping through the tent. Charles grumbled about the decency of closing the door quickly, while B.J. just stared towards his roommate. Eyes, glassy from the alcohol, vacant…pained. He resumed his pacing, not in the mood for talking and not trusting himself to keep his emotions in check.

At the continued silence, and lack of response from B.J., Hawkeye realized there was something chillier in the tent than the wintry weather. He just couldn’t figure out what it was.

After tough cases B.J. always needed to recover, let off some steam, usually by drowning himself in the still or spending far too long at the officer’s club. But Hawkeye was typically at his side; there to lend a comforting hand, shoulder to cry on, or well-timed witty joke. This…this was something new. Something different. Maybe working on the young girl had affected him more than Hawkeye realized…

Not missing a beat, Hawkeye strolled towards his cot with a practiced joviality. He hadn’t had the easiest OR session either; he’d lost someone on the table and had been admittedly pretty testy the rest of the session. Now, all he wanted to do was drink and see B.J. smile. If the tense atmosphere in the Swamp was anything to go by, he’d have to work hard for that dazzling grin. He always did like a challenge though. Cheering B.J. up would keep his mind off of his patient, and pretending to be fine and drowning his sorrows was now second nature.

“Well! I believe I am picking up on some _tension_ in the air. Is that coming from you, Beej? Care to share? Get something off your chest? Stretch out on my portable psychiatrist couch?” Hawkeye, not anticipating a response, continued on with his act; dazzling smile on his face, arms extended and gesticulating wildly. Didn’t matter if the smile was fake.

 _Tough crowd tonight. Maybe try a new tactic._ Hawkeye toned down the forced happiness and opted for a dash of sincere concern.

“Come on, it wasn’t so bad, Beej. Don’t worry about it and do what I do—forget! Forget it all and drink! Why talk about the terrible round of surgery we finished when we could get drunk and ignore it just as easily? So, if you would be so kind as to fill my glass, Mr. Hunnicutt, and share whatever undrinkable swill is still in the still!”

B.J. halted his pacing and turned sharply at Hawkeye’s ramblings, fixing him with a piercing glare. 

_He read it. He knows how I feel. And how did he react? He was cold, distant in OR. Pushing me away. He must hate me. At the very least he doesn’t feel the same._

_He doesn’t feel the same…_

“Jesus Hawk, I don’t know how you do that.” The surgeon let out a mirthless laugh. “ _Forget_. So casual. So _easy._ Must be nice to just wipe all this away like it doesn’t mean anything,” the surgeon spat in his friend’s direction. Surgery made him numb. The little girl made him angry. The letter sent him over the edge.

“Now what’s that supposed to mean?” Hawkeye spluttered, his bewilderment evident as he crossed his arms over his chest.

B.J. shook his head. The man he was inexplicably, head-over-heels in love with, knows how he feels and doesn’t feel the same. _He doesn’t feel the same._ He was on a downward spiral captained by gin and regret, with every drink, falling deeper and deeper into wallowing self-pity and nonsensical catastrophizing. But he couldn't help it and he couldn't stop it. This wasn’t sane or rational; all he found himself wanting to do was pick a fight. Get angry, put on a show of hate. _Maybe this will be easier. Maybe it won’t hurt so bad if he’s just as angry as I am._

“Oh, just do what you always do and forget it. Drown yourself in booze. Go chase after a nurse. Smile and laugh in the face of it all. It’s what you’re good at, isn’t it?”

Hawkeye recoiled at the venom in those words. His best friend’s tone was uncharacteristic, hard to place, one riddled with uncontrolled emotion. _Something’s wrong._ The dark-haired surgeon wracked his brain, trying desperately to come up with some logical explanation for B.J.’s reaction and responses. He couldn’t find one. _It had to be more than just the OR session, it had to be._

Unwittingly, Hawkeye felt his own anger flaring in equal proportion. Annoyance quickly replacing his earlier cheerfulness.

“Hey! That’s not fair and you know it. Where is this coming from, Beej? This session was rough on all of us. I know working on kids is hard for you, but I was just-”

“Oh, come off it. That's great that the jokes always work for you. But God forbid you ever take _anything_ seriously,” B.J. snapped, with a finality to his tone, before downing the last of his drink.

_Maybe if I’m angry I won’t have to think about how much I love you. How much it hurts that you don’t love me back. You probably hate me. Oh God, you must hate me…_

Hawkeye’s own aggravation bristled, blue eyes flashing, as he crossed the Swamp to stand with his hands on his hips in front of the Californian.

“Ohhh no. You don’t get to say that. Sure, I joke and I laugh and I try to forget because I wouldn’t last another _goddamned_ second in this hell hole if I didn’t. With how long I’ve been here I think I’ve fucking earned that right.” Hawkeye closed what little remained of the distance between the two, his face dangerously close to B.J.’s. “I don’t know what’s gotten into you today, but what’s wildly apparent is you’ve had one too many tastes of that homemade paint thinner!”

A deafening silence descended on the Swamp. The two stood, Hawkeye, vibrating with his rising rage, and B.J., with an empty glass and pain poisoning his mind, staring each other down. Tensions high. Misunderstanding and uncertainty tangible. Charles openly stared at the pair over his book, mouth parted in shock.

The crumbled-up piece of paper in B.J.’s fist all but forgotten and unnoticed by the three occupants of the Swamp.

“I…I’m going to post-op. _Alone_ ,” B.J. hissed between clenched teeth. He roughly shouldered past Hawkeye, slamming the martini glass on the table and barreling purposefully towards the door.

At the threshold of the tent the taller man paused. The hand he raised to open the door still held the lone sheet of paper.

_I need that laugh. As much as I need you._

The words taunted him, tormented him. Hawkeye had read those words and said _nothing._ Had been distant and cold. Probably hated him for how he felt, for expressing how he felt. Repulsed. Sickened. No possibility, no chance Hawkeye felt the same way. B.J. dropped his hand, his breathing ragged. _This fucking page._ After the absolutely, undeniably, godawful day he’d had—finding this page had broken him.

The Californian spun on his heel, a multitude of emotions swirling in the dark sea blue of his eyes. He stared hard at Hawkeye, mouth opened slightly. Like there was something he wanted to say but the war raging inside of him couldn’t decide what. Hawkeye looked back expectantly. Hoping for some kind of explanation or reassurance.

B.J. stalked back towards Hawkeye and sloughed off the borrowed coat, shoving it into his friend’s hands. Then, almost as an afterthought, he pressed the crumbled piece of paper forcefully into his chest. He kept his hand there for a beat, blue eyes searching Hawkeye’s for some recognition, some sign.

“You can have this back.”

Hawkeye glanced down at the page, and then up at B.J., his confusion evident. The deepest corners of his gaze seeming to ask: _“What do you want me to say?”_

B.J. took the silence as confirmation of all he'd been feeling. With a final shaky breath, the surgeon rushed from the tent, head bent into the forceful wind.

**_3:00 AM_ **

An ominous quiet descended, unsettling the two remaining surgeons. Hawkeye stood rooted in place, one hand holding the paper to his chest, the other the returned jacket. His gaze flicked between his hands, up at Charles, and then towards the now closed Swamp door.

His anger dissipating, Hawkeye felt…lost. He didn’t have an answer. He who always had an answer to everything, answers to queries not yet asked and comments not yet made, was left dumbfounded. Speechless. Hurting, confused, and uncertain, having no idea about what just happened between him and his best friend. All he’d wanted after his patient died was to get drunk and lose himself in B.J.’s smile. But B.J. had had other ideas. He’d pushed all his buttons and provoked him. And then there had been something in B.J.’s eyes before he left, some emotion burning in his gaze that Hawkeye hadn’t been able to place. B.J. had never looked at Hawkeye that way. Like he'd betrayed him, like he'd hurt him.

As for Charles, he’d been beguilingly transfixed by the inordinate, passionate display. At Hawkeye’s entrance, he’d given up all pretense of reading and had stared at the scene, eyes bouncing between the two purported best friends as they tossed verbal lashings back and forth in a train wreck of a tennis match. The pair had had disagreements before, but nothing quite as mystifying as this one. Whereas an argument or tiff would arise with a very obvious source of friction, this has been a manifestation of uncontainable, overpowering sentiments with no apparent root cause. Hunnicutt’s emotional reaction had stupefied him, and Hawkeye’s silence was…disconcerting.

The man in question cleared his throat as he turned to face Charles.

“Alright, what’d you do this time?”

“Me? _Me_? I resent the implication that I should be the cause of that-that disturbing display. However. Upon witnessing Hunnicutt’s interactions with you, Pierce, might I suggest turning that gaze inwards, hmm?”

Narrowing his eyes at Charles, Hawkeye grudgingly admitted he had a point. He had just hoped he was wrong. Charles’ words also reminded him of the crumbled page B.J. had given him. Maybe it was some clue, some hint at explaining his roommate’s behavior.

Hawkeye slowly opened it. If he was confused before, now he was even more so.

_This didn’t explain anything. This page was just a part of a letter B.J. had written to Peg, right? Why would he give this back to me? Why would this make him angrier than I’ve ever seen him? It doesn’t make any sense…_

Charles watched as Hawkeye stared blankly at the opened page. Whatever he had hoped to find on its surface didn’t seem to be there. He recognized unconcealed anguish lining the man’s face, and stubbornly felt his indifferent façade crack just a little. Once again, it wasn’t _concern_ or _care._ Maybe offering some measure of comfort was just the proper thing to do in this sort of situation. _Yes. The proper thing._ Charles cleared his throat and got to his feet, stowing his poetry book atop his pillow. Studiously ignoring Hawkeye, he wrapped his scarf a little tighter before crossing towards the exit. With one hand on the door Charles turned, fixing Hawkeye with a decent attempt at a disinterested look.

“I’m feeling rather…peckish. I think I’ll sample whatever the mess tent is still offering. You are more than welcome to accompany me, Pierce, should you feel…up to it.”

To his dismay, Charles was unable to keep tendrils of kindness from leaking into his words. But maybe he wasn’t too opposed to being nice to Pierce. Maybe.

The brooding surgeon glanced at him, the rawness of emotion in his gaze disquieting. Uncertainty and pain swirled in his intense blue eyes, making him look much younger than the tufts of grey hair hinted at. Hawkeye didn’t offer a response, just stayed rooted in place, the paper and jacket held dejectedly in his hands. Charles tried not to find it so alarming that the surgeon didn’t supply a witty retort or flippant reply. Because he really wasn’t worried. At least that’s what he told himself.

Hawkeye gave Charles a small nod and a tight smile before following him out the door.

The two surgeons emerged from the Swamp, minds preoccupied.

Despite the time, the camp was still brimming with activity as nurses and soldiers scurried between buildings to minimize their exposure to the frigid night air. Hawkeye didn’t even notice.

At a particularly fierce gust of wind, Hawkeye shivered and donned the returned jacket, stuffing the paper and his hands into the pockets. He walked pensively, no joke or quip jumping to mind to fill the silence. Thankfully his companion recognized the quiet for what it was and didn’t push Hawkeye to talk, converse, or answer questions. They just strolled, side by side, shivering in the cold. More companionable than either ever thought possible for their relationship.

Trudging along, Hawkeye played over in his mind all that had happened after coming out of the OR. Losing his patient, the only person to die on the table that session. His surprise at discovering B.J. didn’t wait for him. Dealing with his own rage and feelings of futility and worthlessness. The pained expression on his best friend’s face when he entered the Swamp. B.J.’s unbridled, alcohol-infused anger. Confusion and worry mounting with each passing moment. His own frustration rising in response to B.J.’s provocations. B.J. handing him the letter with an aching hopefulness, an indescribable question lingering in his eyes.

There had been something there, something unspoken about this page that gave Hawkeye the impression it was more than just a misplaced letter to Peg; that B.J. had wanted him, _expected_ him, to react in a certain way. To say something specific. But...what?

A draft of whistling wind stole the breath from Hawkeye’s lungs and he shivered involuntarily. He realized that his anger was gone completely; while it surged and swelled with little provocation, it receded, like waves from the sandy shore, just as easily. In its corrosive wake it left raw and bitter hurt, worry shadowing his mind.

Truly, the not knowing was the hardest part. B.J. could yell at him all day, every day, as long as he knew why. More often than not he probably deserved it, if he was being honest. But to have his best friend, a man who he was so deeply moved by, to look at him with agonizing acrimony and incensed betrayal burning in his eyes? To have his words sharpened like spears, lancing through the air and piercing him with anger, with malevolent intent?

It was a pain that Hawkeye had never experienced before, an ache in his chest that punched clear through to his heart.

B.J.’s words cut him deeply. And the letter…the letter was a puzzle Hawkeye didn’t have the mental capacity to solve at 3 AM. As he and Charles neared the mess tent, one thought burned brighter than the rest, twisting sickeningly in his stomach, leaving a bitter taste in his mouth. A simple question he just couldn’t fathom an answer to.

_What did I do?_


	8. even on the edge of doom

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The whole camp is feeling the effects of the fall out from B.J. and Hawkeye's argument. Something has to be done. But what?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ooof! This took waaaaaaay too long to update. Lost the inspo for this fic for awhile, but now I'm back! Very short chapter this go round. Enjoy!
> 
> title inspo: Shakespeare's Sonnet 116

Much to Hawkeye’s dismay, B.J.’s outburst was just the beginning. 

It had been almost two full days since that morning in the Swamp and the two best friends were as angry as they could be; the absolute shortest of fuses, at each other’s throats and stubbornly refusing to be the first one to break the silence. B.J. was embarrassed and angry and hurt, but not that he’d tell Hawkeye that. As for the witty Maine native, he was incredibly miffed by the constant cold shoulder, and channeled his own hurt just as B.J. had prescribed: fake smiles, chasing nurses, and copious amounts of alcohol.

Naturally the whole camp knew about the feud by breakfast that next day. Rumor had it that B.J. and Hawkeye got into a fight over nothing; both raw and emotionally drained, B.J. coming to terms with operating on a child and Hawkeye dealing with the fallout from losing a patient. Now, neither one was talking to the other unless they absolutely had to. Avoiding each other at all costs. Making excuses so they wouldn’t have to be in the same place. OR was uncharacteristically silent, tensions making the air seem colder. The officer’s club and mess tent hadn’t seen a lively time in days. If for some reason someone hadn’t heard the gossip, the dramatic shift in atmosphere around the 4077th clued them in very quickly.

Colonel Potter had been fielding complaints non-stop about the morale of the camp. First Father Mulcahy, then Radar, then Margaret, and even Charles came in, each one highlighting the unusual uneasiness in the air and wondering what the commanding officer was going to do about it. Because something had to be done. The general unease was permeating through the group, fraying nerves and shortening tempers. Everyone walked around like they were waiting for the other shoe to drop. The trepidation was suffocating; disquiet descended like an ominous fog.

The old colonel was no stranger to the inner workings of a military unit. Gossip was only natural; a lifeblood, a never-ending coffer that kept them all entertained. Everyone’s noses were in everyone else’s business. Trading, whispering, wheeling and dealing information like the black market. There were no secrets. Well, _mostly_.

Radar had clued him about the argument when he’d brought him his coffee that day at 0630. Now, 48 hours later, Potter still had no inkling as to how he was going to resolve the issue between the surgeons.

The men were best friends, as close as any two people he’d encountered in his long and illustrious career. So naturally it wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows; they fought bitterly, bickered like children, pranked and needled and teased one another till there was no tomorrow. But this time felt different. Radar had told him as much that morning two days ago. As the corporal described the argument, Potter had brushed off the young man's concerns easily. There was nothing to worry about; this was Hawkeye and B.J. for goodness sakes.

“Well, sir, I don’t know about that. I mean, I have a nose for these sorts of things. I really do. Colonel, I’d bet my mama’s prize-winning mule that there’s something else goin’ on.”

The older man should have known he was right.

It was the silence that was the first clue something was off.

Then it was the tension in OR and post-op you could cut with a scalpel.

Finally, it was the absolute, atypical lack of… _fun._ Hawkeye and B.J. were the uncrowned kings of the camp’s morale. Their mood, whatever it may be on any given day, had a ripple effect on everyone else. So, for the past 48 hours, there had been no singing from the officer’s club, no spur-of-the-moment trips to Rosie’s, no heated mess tent debates about what the worst side offered that meal was, no garbage can races through the compound, no laughing or pranks or jokes…nothing.

Something had to be done.

“Fix it, Colonel. This may just be worse than what they’re usually like,” Margaret had lamented.

“I miss playing the piano, Colonel. No one seems to be in the mood anymore,” Father Mulcahy had pointed out rather solemnly.

But it was Charles who proved the most surprising. When he had waltzed into Potter’s office, he had been unable to keep the concern from his voice.

“Colonel,” the man had started, clasping his hands behind his back. “Might I draw your…attention to an issue that, while I have no _particular_ emotional investment in it-”

“I’ll stop you right there, Major. It’s Hunnicutt and Pierce. You’re my fourth visitor today.”

Charles had cleared his throat, looking everywhere but at the colonel.

“Ahh. I see. Well, might I just suggest _something_ be done…”

“Have anything in mind, Winchester?”

The other man looked uncomfortable, which was also unprecedented. Potter had mused he was _quickly_ reaching his personal tolerance level for surprises.

“Well, given their… _conversation_ in the very early morning hours, I am at a loss, Colonel. It was…surprising. They’ve fought before, on a number of occasions, but never like this.”

Colonel Potter had recognized worry tinging Charles’ words, even if the Bostonian was trying his best to hide it.

After all the visits, and some hard thinking on his part, Potter was no closer to a solution.

Where once the pair had been thick as thieves, now the surgeons couldn’t scrounge up ten words between them. Potter could handle it if that were the whole of it. But now their feud, disagreement, hullabaloo, or whatever you wanted to call it, was making the camp a much harder place to live. As an important member of such a place, the colonel was adamant about fixing it. And fast.

The older man measured out a tall glass of bourbon, the heaviness of the pour equal to the heaviness of his sigh. He drained it in one go. As it burned and warmed his chest, he threw the picture of his wife a tired look, hoping that she might give him the strength to get through this.

“Something’s got to be done, Mildred. Got any ideas?”

He paused. Even though a reply wasn’t expected, Potter gave the picture the opportunity just the same. Not an exercise in futility; it was good practice for when he got home.

“That’s what I thought. Just as stumped as I am. Well, seeing as I’ve got no other bright idea jumping out of this old noggin of mine, I’ll just treat them as they ought to be treated: like children.”

Getting to his feet, body creaking louder than his wooden chair, Potter marched determinedly towards his door. If the captains wanted to act like bickering kids, so be it. The colonel would resolve this the same way he'd settled all his children's arguments when they were growing up.

“Radar, get Pierce and Hunnicutt over here, pronto.”

The corporal spun around quickly at his desk, the pencil behind his ear falling from the movement.

“I already called them, Colonel. Captain Pierce is coming from the Swamp and Captain Hunnicutt I finishing up in post-op. They’ll be right in, sir.”

Potter gave a succinct nod before turning back towards his office. He paused suddenly, halfway inside, before looking back at Radar once more.

“Oh, one more thing, Radar. Run and find Father Mulcahy for me? Tell him I need a prayer.”

“A prayer, sir?” Radar looked confused.

“The best one he’s got. Ask him to pray that this little plan of mine works out all hunky dory.”

Radar was almost too afraid to ask the question that hung unspoken in the air between them. With a small voice he replied, “And if it doesn’t, Colonel?”

“Then ask him to pray very hard that I don’t murder the two of them for being damned idiots!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What's Potter's solution? Stay tuned. 
> 
> Emotions are running high, conversations will be had, and both Hawkeye and B.J. must come to terms with what they're feeling.
> 
> Dun dun.


	9. loving the distance between them

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some things happen in the supply room...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow this took...like way too long to update. I am SO SO sorry. Don't hate me. I was contemplating abandoning this story, but then I got some new comments and kudos so I guess people are still interested! It motivated me to finish this next chapter. Enjoy (:
> 
> title inspo: a quote by Ranier Maria Rilke

Hawkeye paced back and forth in front of Colonel Potter’s office while B.J., a brooding dark cloud, sat with his arms crossed in a chair off to the side. He kept mumbling angrily under his breath about fairness and stupidity.

Both doctors still refused to look at one another.

“Colonel,” Hawkeye started, raising his hands in a beseeching gesture. “I don’t want to imply you’ve took leave of your senses, but-”

Potter held up a hand, stilling yet another of round dramatic, pleading performances.

“I seem to have a better grasp on reality than _you_ two nincompoops! My decision is final.” The commanding officer threw both surgeons a dark stare. “I better not hear another complaint coming out of your yap, Pierce. And Hunnicutt, if you don’t knock off that surly mood, you’ll find out _just_ how unfair I can be!”

B.J. had the good sense to look slightly guilty, shrinking away from the boom in Potter’s voice.

“Now, my watch has 1143 hours. I expect you both in the supply room, with smiles on your faces and bad moods _gone_ , at 1200 sharp. You will stay there until that _entire place_ is spotless. I’ll lock the door behind you if I have to. Work together and you’ll be done in no time. If you don’t, well…I wouldn’t expect to leave that room until noon tomorrow.”

Potter paused to let his words sink in. He shot them both pointed looks, and jabbed a finger at Hawkeye whose mouth was open to voice yet another grievance. The tall surgeon snapped his jaw shut with a click.

“This needs to stop. Today.” The colonel softened his tone just a fraction. “Your little tiff has put the entire camp on edge and everybody’s worse off for it, including me. Working together, doing something neither of you want to do, will do the trick.”

Hawkeye glanced nervously over at B.J.

He really didn’t think this would work, but Colonel Potter was so convinced and Hawkeye was willing to try anything at this point. These had been two of the worst days of his life. And for being stuck in this hellhole for what felt like years, that was saying something. With a resigned huff, he noticed that his friend was still pointedly avoiding eye contact with him.

_Well, this should be fun._

* * *

B.J. was punctual, as ever. A few minutes early even.

Hawkeye, naturally, was late.

As the older surgeon came sauntering into the supply room at 1209, not a care in the world, B.J. couldn’t suppress his eye roll.

“Well, well, well! Fancy seeing you here!”

Hawkeye tried not to let B.J.’s continued cold shoulder dim his fake good cheer. If the two of them were going to be booked in the supply room for an extended stay, no use in making it harder that it needed to be. The older surgeon speculated it might be a one-man show, but he was used to those.

“I love what you’ve done with the place, Beej. The dust, the dirt, the dysentery. What every good date needs!”

B.J. bristled at Hawkeye’s word choice. Instead of responding, he turned his back on the man and proceeded to rummage around the boxes on the shelf.

“If we have to stay here, we may as well get back on speaking terms, Beej. It’ll be a long ordeal if the temperature is as icy in here as it is out there,” Hawkeye hooked a thumb over his shoulder and back towards the door.

“That’s not required to complete this stupid task.”

“He speaks! Oh ho ho! He speaks, he speaks! I _knew_ you couldn’t ignore me forever!”

B.J. turned around sharply, his eyes blazing.

“The sooner we start Hawk, the sooner this is over.”

“Oh, come on Beej! It’s just you and me, locked in the supply room, alone…” The flirtation was accompanied by exaggerated eyebrow raises.

“Cut it out, Hawk,” B.J. bit out. “Potter didn’t actually lock the door behind us, anyways.”

“A man can dream.”

B.J. glowered silently. _How did he have the nerve, the audacity to make jokes about that?_ It was like pouring salt in a wound.

“You. Start in that corner. I’ll start over here.”

“Now, Beej. Potter did say we should work togeth-”

“ _That_. _Corner_.” B.J. pointed with each word violently towards the far side of the room. He wanted as much space between him and Hawkeye as possible. His anger was still as close as it had been two days ago, swirling thoughts about Hawkeye reading his letter, possibly hating him, too painful even now.

Hawkeye strolled to the far side of the very unorganized, crowded, and frankly dirty supply room, glancing around as he went. It would take a miracle to get this place even close to organized by tonight, let alone tomorrow. He kicked absentmindedly at an empty carton.

“This place could give the Swamp a run for its money…”

The surgeon turned in a circle, hating the idea of the amount of work it would take to straighten up this room. Here he was, finally _alone_ with B.J. and somewhere that no one would be interrupting any time soon, but he’d never felt further from his best friend. This was not the way it played out in his fantasies…

“You know, here’s a wild idea! Why don’t I come join you in that unorganized corner and we can work together! You know, really dive right in. Push our sleeves up. Collectively tackle this task like a well-oiled machine-”

“I realize you like to hear yourself talk, _Hawkeye._ But can you please just, for once, shut up, and do what I’m asking you?”

B.J.’s tone was cold and sharp, his words stinging painfully. Hawkeye could tell that his friend was just as miffed now as he’d been in the Swamp a few days ago. He hadn’t simmered down at all. But the older surgeon wasn’t going to give up that easily; he’d had just about enough of B.J.’s cold shoulder, thorny anger, and surly attitude.

“Since we can’t work together, maybe at least I could sing-”

“ _No_.”

“There’s this story I read in the paper-”

“ _Shut. Up._ ”

“It’s to be silence then, warden?”

In response, B.J. glared venomously at him.

“Aha. _Silence_. My favorite...”

Hawkeye barely dodged the bed roll that was sent hurtling towards his head. He quickly held up his hands in surrender, and then mimed zipping his lips and throwing away the key. B.J. stared at him, stony faced. The Californian, satisfied that Hawkeye was going to be quiet, turned back once more to the boxes at his feet.

_This was going to be a long day_ , Hawkeye thought glumly.

* * *

The supply room was basically organized. It hadn’t taken as long as Potter predicted, but it had still taken the rest of the day and some of the next morning. B.J.’s watch revealed that it was already well past midnight and the window for dinner had long since closed. They were closer to breakfast at this point.

“Well, I think we’re about done here!”

“Hawk…”

“Oh, come on! If I have to be quiet any longer, I’ll explode!” The lanky man began pacing back and forth, gesticulating wildly. “I may have taken a vow of silence, but I was younger then, and much too naïve. Besides, I never met a vow I couldn’t break!”

B.J., who had been sitting on the floor organizing one final box of medicine, slammed his head back into the wall. He’d almost successfully avoided thinking about Hawkeye all day, barely glanced at him (four instances in over 12 hours was a huge improvement on his day to day). But now the man was speaking again, in that ostentatious syllabic rhythm that swelled his heart in his chest and clouded his mind with intoxicating echoes.

“Ah words, words! Beautiful words! How I’ve missed you!”

“Hawk…” B.J. tried to keep his voice steady.

He rose to his feet to give himself something to do.

He grabbed the newly-organized box off the floor to try and distract himself.

He walked to put it in the space on the shelf he’d left in the final aisle to put some distance between himself and Hawkeye.

But none of these things succeeded in diverting his attention from the absolute clusterfuck of his feelings. They were choking him, smothering him with their pendulum swings and cacophonies and nuances. Overwhelming him. He knew he was still mad at Hawkeye. Well, maybe not mad, but upset. He was definitely mad at _himself_ ; for the idiotic things he’d done, the insane feelings he’d penned to paper, his reaction that night in the Swamp…

“Come on, Beej! We’re done! Let’s not disappoint the old man and call our fight done, too!”

Hawkeye crossed the supply room and leaned casually against the wall. Though appearing unintentional in nature, he’d selected this spot specifically. They were in the last row of shelves, B.J. leaning down to place one final box in its spot, his back to him. Where he’d chosen to place himself effectively cornered the taller surgeon, forcing B.J. to talk to him, or at the very least pass incredibly close by him if he intended to exit the row. Hawkeye could have situated himself a bit closer to where his friend stood. But he kept some distance between them, not taking his usual invading position within B.J.’s personal space.

Although he desperately wanted to.

“I mean, I can’t even remember what we were fighting about to begin with!”

“Forget it,” B.J. ground out, keeping his eyes fixed on the box in his hands. He had heard Hawkeye cross the room, the thump as he’d leaned against the wall. It was terribly difficult to ignore how Hawkeye had decided to stand right behind him, the lazy sounds of his breathing just a few feet away, putting them nearer than they’d been in days.

B.J.’s grip on the cardboard tightened, his knuckles white. _Please, Hawk. Just drop it._

But instead of taking the two words like the brush off he’d intended, his best friend seemed to take them as a challenge. B.J. really should have known Hawkeye wouldn’t let him off that easily. The infuriating man had been trying to get him alone since their fight, undeniably wanting to mend the fence, lay the argument to rest, resew the torn fabric of their relationship.

And now they were alone, in the dead of night, for all intents and purposes locked in a room together.

Hawkeye took a step closer, closing the distance between the two. B.J. had nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. He was trapped in the corner of the room with neat boxes of surgical gloves on the shelves to his right and impenetrable walls in front and to his left.

“Oh, not that _forget it_ routine again!” Hawkeye said much too loudly for the much too small space. “No way. Not a chance. You’ve had your shorts in a twist for too long and I demand answers!”

_Answers_.

B.J. almost laughed.

How was he supposed to respond to that? How was he supposed to convey how hurt he was that Hawkeye had read his letter and said nothing? How he was so torn up inside because his best friend knew he had feelings for him, and with the way he’d acted in OR, probably hated him for it? How painful it was to realize that the one person he couldn’t live without, could live without _him?_

“Answers. Huh. Really.”

His back was quite literally against the wall in this situation. _Answers._ B.J. wasn’t sure he had much left to lose. Nothing could be worse than the total agony of the last few days, the hurt and the isolation and the uncertainty drowning him and raking like hot coals over his skin.

“Yeah, really. Answers would be nice!”

Hawkeye’s tone indicated he had no clue as to what he was asking for.

Well…if it was answers he wanted. It was answers he was going to get.

B.J. pushed the box perfectly into place and straightened back up. He didn’t turn around, because he knew how close Hawkeye was, and he knew he might falter if he looked too deeply into those burning sapphire pools.

“I need that laugh. As much as I need you.”

B.J. didn’t rush, he spoke those ten words clearly and confidently into the tense supply room air. Those were the words he’d selected specifically because they were the root of it all, the start of it all. And as painful as they were to say out loud, to the one person he never imagined saying them to, they were necessary. Hawkeye would know. Without coming right out and revealing it in plain terms, B.J. used the ten words that perfectly encapsulated all that he’d endured the last few days.

He could hear Hawkeye’s loud exhale, could practically envision the scoff hanging on his dark features.

Silence, thick and ominous, descended between the two friends. It continued for five, ten, then thirty seconds. It was a tension that was almost unbearable by the time it reached a full minute. The lack of a response annoyingly picked at B.J.’s blossoming irritation. Hawkeye at least could have the decency to answer. Because he knew. He had to.

Slowly, with more restraint than he believed he had, B.J. turned on his heel.

He waited, watching the cogs whirring in Hawkeye’s mind. Could see the final puzzle piece notching perfectly into place as recognition lit within the blue expanses of his eyes.

“The page?! _This_ is what’s got you all riled up and snapping at my heels for the past two days? That stupid piece of basically blank paper?”

B.J. remained silent. Trying to keep control, straining at the wheel in his hands, fighting to keep his footing on the tumultuous ship helm beneath him that bucked and groaned in the raging sea of his emotions.

“Beej, you’ve done some pretty strange things, but this sets a new record…”

“Yes. Yes, the _letter_ , Hawk.” B.J. snapped, his voice icy in its fury. Not understanding why Hawkeye chose this moment to play dumb. It didn’t suit him at all.

“I’m allowed to be upset that you read the letter and didn’t say anything. Didn’t have the integrity to respond to it at all!”

“I’m not sure I follow…”

“Come off it, Hawk. You know exactly what I’m talking about!”

“I don’t know what possibly gave you that idea. Does this look like the face of a man who understands? I’m not wearing this dumbfounded expression because it makes me look cute, I have no _clue_ what you’re talking about!”

That stopped the brooding doctor cold.

“You…don’t…?”

“Beej, it’s just a piece of paper, right? I’m sorry I read it, and I’m sorry I kept it and didn’t tell you. When Charles handed it to me, I just thought it was part of a letter to Peg that you must’ve dropped on the floor. I mean, I know I should have just set it on your bunk or told you about it, but then the casualties came in and it slipped my mind. I didn’t think one sentence on one page to your wife was _that_ big of a deal!”

Hawkeye’s finished explanation bounced off the supply room walls. His words shook the ground beneath B.J.’s feet, turned everything on its head, confused him so thoroughly that his stunned brain barely provided comprehensible speech.

“Paper. Dropped. For Peg...”

“Uhh, it doesn’t seem like the page was the only thing dropped…you lose a few of your marbles there?”

Wide eyed, B.J. took a few steps back. His brows were knit, a hand raised to his forehead, muttering to himself under his breath.

“I mean, I just assumed…to Peg, really…that explains…”

“Beej, I’m drowning over here!” Hawkeye pushed off the wall and threw his hands up in a dramatic fashion. “Wanna toss out a life preserver?”

B.J. forced his eyes to meet Hawkeye’s gaze.

“You really thought that was for Peg?”

“I don’t know how many times I have to say this, but _yes_ , yes I did. And I still don’t understand what that’s got to do with anything!”

With an astounded shake of his head, B.J. stepped towards Hawkeye, closing the few feet of space between them. They were face to face, both men breathing heavily.

“It…it wasn’t for Peg.”

The charge in the surrounding atmosphere increased another notch.

“Umm…you lost me there, Beej,” Hawkeye whispered, his puzzlement palpable.

“I— _uh_ —that paper. That you found. Well, that Charles found and gave to you. It wasn’t…it wasn’t for _Peg_.”

Hawkeye’s heart thudded loudly in his ears. He raked a hand through his salt and pepper locks and cocked his head to the side.

“Aha. I see…no, actually, I don’t think I do…”

B.J. swallowed thickly, hoping against all hope that Hawkeye would put two and two together. The older surgeon dropped his eyes to the floor, chewing worriedly at his lower lip.

“So…was that the only reason you were mad at me? Or should I settle in for your 94 other grievances that you probably nailed to the door of the Swamp?”

B.J. shook his head and let out a loud huff. Trying to diffuse the tension, how typical. If he wasn’t so terrified about what the immediate future held, he might have laughed.

“Do you-”

The Californian paused. He wanted, desperately, to make sure Hawkeye understood. This was it. This was his moment. He may not understand all the plethora of roiling emotions twisting and whirling inside of him, the chaotically mercurial forces pitching and fighting for control, but he knew one thing beyond a shadow of a doubt.

“Please tell me you understand, Hawk.”

In response, his best friends raised his eyes from where they’d been staring at his discolored boots.

“I think…but I don’t…” Hawkeye trailed off, an unusual nervousness wavering his words. “You need me to say it out loud, don’t you?”

B.J.’s eyes shone brightly in the dim light. A barely perceptible nod was all Hawkeye needed for confirmation. 

“It was…for me, wasn’t it?”

Every fiber of him was screaming, every atom bouncing and jumping with exultation, sunlight streaming from every pore. He wanted to cry, to yell, to laugh, to smile. Words jumbled in his mind, competing thoughts urging to be shared and whispered in the space between them. There was no reply sufficient to capture all B.J. wanted to say in that moment. So he did the only thing he’d been yearning to for months, been dreaming of and thinking of, the thing that filled his waking mind and seduced every last one of his wishes.

Surging forwards, B.J.’s lips crashed into Hawkeye’s, hungry with desire and raw emotion. He felt the other man stiffen a fraction, before surrendering himself to the devastating kiss.

It was better than anything B.J. could have imagined.

Hawkeye’s lips were as expressive as the rest of him. They melded and molded wondrously beneath B.J.’s own frantic, desirous movements. He could sense the lust in the man’s response, could taste the sweet nectar of desire on his tongue. It was passionate and sloppy and exhilarating and wonderful.

He wanted more, he wanted to probe deeper. To push past this first step and swim in the deepest pools of Hawkeye’s intoxicating soul. But before he could, he felt Hawkeye pull away.

_No,_ his mind screamed at him. _No, not yet._ But he let him, dropping raised hands back to his side and leaning ever so slightly away.

Hawkeye was breathing heavily, his eyes blown wide with desire, light skin flushed pink. The supply room was suddenly very warm despite the frigid air outside. B.J. glanced down at Hawkeye’s swollen lower lip and ached urgently to take it between his teeth and never let go. But he forced down that wish and looked into the gaze of the man he loved.

The dark-haired surgeon didn’t say anything, just stood, dumbstruck. He raised a hand to his lips, as if he wasn’t certain what had just happened was real. Blue eyes, hooded with confused hope and uncertainty, searched B.J.’s expression. Hawkeye was hunting to uncover any hint of malice or seed of falsehood. But all he saw was passion and longing and affection.

_This_ , this right here, was all he’d ever dreamed about. Him and Beej. So why was he now so impossibly afraid?

Suddenly he felt like he couldn’t breathe. It was all too much…this was…this couldn’t be happening. Not breaking eye contact, Hawkeye started backing up towards the supply room door. His head was shaking slowly back and forth.

With a whispered “I’m sorry”, Hawkeye turned and ran through the door. It shut with a resounding slam behind him.

B.J. could only stare at the shut door, his last sliver of hope shattering into a million pieces.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you guys liked it! I'll get better at updating I promise. Thanks to all who have stuck with this fic, your feedback is keeping me motivated!


	10. passion poesy, glories infinite

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> title inspo from “from, Endymion” by John Keats

He didn’t know where to go, he just knew he couldn’t be _there._ It didn’t matter that he left his scarf on the chair by the door, or his jacket in a ball in the corner. His mind—despite every fiber of his being screaming at him to stay and revel and need and _enjoy_ —was telling him to run.

Run hard and fast, never once looking back.

It might be the one thing in the whole world he wanted, but it was the one thing he couldn’t permit himself to have.

Hawkeye was thankful for the shock of cold that assaulted his senses as he barreled through the doors. It grounded him, jolted him painfully back to reality. This, this was real—the harsh wind whipping his flushed face, the dirt and gravel scuffing beneath his boots, the patchwork of green army tents and ramshackle buildings he’d called home for too long. All else had to be a dream. Unrealistic fantasy and fanciful illusion.

It had to be.

The memory of B.J.’s lips intoxicatingly moving against his burned fiercely in his mind’s eye, quickening his breath and weakening his knees.

_Did that really just happen?_

Hawkeye physically shook his head, trying to dislodge the surging emotions and passionate memories.

_It couldn’t be…_

His best friend’s eyes hooded with desire. The heat bouncing between their bodies as they kissed. B.J.’s mouth begging for more, to keep going and never stop…

_Stop it, stop it, stop it!_

The surgeon brought his hands up and pressed them firmly against his face. He was so _confused_ , the enigma of emotions pulsating beneath his skin overwhelming him in devastating fashion.

He didn’t know where to go or what to do.

While a part of him provocatively whispered he should go right back into that supply room, another part of him chastised and berated him for that impulse, instead coolly reminding him about the unattainability of his devilishly handsome roommate.

He could go to the Swamp. But that'd be the first place B.J. would go looking for him...and he didn’t know if he’d be strong enough to resist the urges within him if he saw him again so soon. It’d be easier to hide in the mess tent or post-op…

A firm hand on his shoulder had him loudly yelping in surprise. He comically whirled around, clutching a hand to his chest, his eyes frantic.

“You trying to give someone a heart atta-”

The words died in his throat.

_Shit._

B.J. stood, Hawkeye’s forgotten winter clothing in one hand and his other wrapped tightly around his friend’s upper arm, face betraying nothing.

Without so much as a word, the taller man steered them towards the privacy of the VIP tent. Hawkeye could only follow along dumbly, still reeling and now firmly apprehensive about his best friend’s reaction to what he’d just done.

The older man was reminded of a story his friend had told him about Peggy, where he’d bother her over and over about a problem she kept bottled up, cornering her in the kitchen until she finally relented and told him how she was feeling. Hawkeye was fairly certain B.J. was about to figuratively corner him in the VIP tent and not leave until they’d hashed out the insanity of the last few days.

At that thought, Hawkeye was suddenly very afraid.

The kind of fear that comes tiptoeing along once you fully take in the incredible expanse of the unknown before you; the kind that maliciously sows seeds of worry in the darkest corners of your mind. There was no way to know what was about to happen.

Hawkeye wished more than anything he could just bottle these feelings up alongside all the others and continue on with his life as if nothing occurred. Bury them so far down and deep that he wouldn’t have to think about them except in the moments right when he woke up—unprotected, when everything was still dark, his only company his rustling thoughts.

B.J. was going to make sure he never got the chance to even grab his shovel.

With a charged silence that was increasingly unnerving, Hawkeye let B.J. lead him through the doorway, deposit him on the bed, shut the door firmly behind them, and turn on the overhead light. He still didn’t make a sound when B.J. pulled a chair up to sit directly in front of him, putting the two men at eye level and incredibly close.

Hawkeye’d been cornered for sure.

The raw emotion in B.J.’s eyes pulled at Hawkeye’s heart. He could see the patterns of affection weaving and bobbing alongside the dark blues of confusion, concern, determination, and sincerity.

Thankfully the abundance of anger that had inhabited his friend’s expression over the past few days was absent.

Blood pounding in his ears, and breath hitching in his throat, Hawkeye watched as B.J. slowly took one of his hands. B.J.’s fingers felt cool from the chilly night air. They began to trace along Hawkeye’s palm, following the crisscrossing lines in a way that made the surgeon shiver. Finishing his ministrations, B.J. enveloped his hand around Hawkeye’s, tenderly holding him in a way that seemed to be asking him to stay right where he was.

In a voice he had to strain to hear, B.J. broke the silence.

“You know, I love your hands. It seems a silly thing to say when there’s so many other wonderful things about you. But I can’t help but be drawn to them.”

As he spoke, the Californian threaded his fingers delicately between Hawkeye’s. He began to rub his thumb along the bottom of Hawkeye’s palm and the sensitive area under his wrist, drawing tiny circles and shapes along the pale skin.

Hawkeye could barely breathe. B.J.’s touch hypnotized him; drew his attention to the slightly rough feel of the pad of his thumb, the raging blue of his eyes, the hoarse sound of his voice.

A joke jumped to his mind. He could easily deflect with humor as he always did, pull the focus from the emotional charge of the situation and effectively tamp down on the sea blustering beneath the surface. It was a very tempting offer. But the look in B.J.’s eyes, the earnest sincerity of his expression, sucked the wind from the sails of that ship.

“I-uh-I’m sorry I ran,” Hawkeye whispered, dropping his eyes to the hand that B.J. held in his own.

When he didn’t receive an immediate reply, Hawkeye figured this was B.J.’s way of asking him to continue. To explain.

But what could he say?

Nothing he felt fit into clear cut boxes, with easily quantifiable and expressible definitions. For how much he talked, he truly didn’t say a lot. There was subtext and hidden layers, but also deflection and misdirection and concealment.

Few times did he truly lower every last one of his shields and say what he meant, and mean what he said.

He’d always struggled with this. After Carlye—Carlye, for whom he’d opened his heart, the one person he’d allowed into the profoundest confines of his soul—after her, he’d been unable to fully open up to anyone. Relationships came and went, none delving deeper than he permitted.

But for B.J.

…well for B.J., he could try.

“After the past couple days, the last thing I expected you to do was—was _that._ We’re in the middle of this ping pong match of emotions, switching back and forth so fast I’m a little dizzy. I couldn’t believe it. One minute you were still mad at me and the next...I mean...after everything…I was shocked. Surprised. In a good way, I promise. But more than that…I was scared, Beej. Because you can’t know how many times I’ve thought of-”

Hawkeye cut himself off, clearing his throat roughly. Words were spilling from him faster than he could process them, a fire hose, a dam breaking; truths stumbling from his lips that he’d been too afraid to acknowledge even to himself.

“That wasn’t how I wanted it to happen. In my wildest dreams, my deepest wishes, I wanted it to be perfect, like one of those indelible movie screen kisses that everyone swoons at. And yet…I really only thought that existed in my mind. I never expected it to _happen_.”

He stopped and took a steadying breath.

Finally raising his eyes, he met his friend’s piercing stare.

“But it did. And God Beej, it was wonderful.” He smiled at the fond memory, his cheeks flushing with the recollected heat as he squeezed B.J.’s hand.

“I just…I _wanted_ it, more than anything I’ve ever wanted before…but I knew I shouldn’t. It’s not fair to you, Beej.”

At that, B.J.’s brows knit together.

“Fair?” He shook his head. “I don’t…”

In response, Hawkeye slowly extricated his hand from B.J.’s and simply touched the band on the man’s ring finger.

A sad spark of recognition surged in the Californian’s eyes.

“I always go for what I can’t have, it’s as simple as that.”

B.J. rose to his feet and began pacing, absentmindedly fiddling with his now incredibly apparent wedding ring. Unfair didn’t even begin to cover it. It was _him_ who had been unfair. Unfair to Hawkeye, unfair to himself, and unfair to Peg. He’d harbored these feelings for quite a while, and still had yet to come up with a coherent way to address how he could love two people at the same time.

Before Korea he’d never…well, like he told Hawk, he’d never even been tempted. But war was a funny thing. He’d done things he’d never thought he would, seen things he’d never imagined he’d see.

Maybe he could explain it better than he thought.

“Hawk…look, I don’t have all the answers. But right now, right here, _this_ ,” B.J. gestured between the two of them. “Whatever _this_ is, makes it bearable. Nothing’s certain and tomorrow isn’t promised. I’m going to find whatever I can to get through this war and wrap myself in it so tight it blocks out all the bad. And I’m not going to feel guilty for doing so. You, _this_ , will get me through.”

He sat back down, an intensity in his eyes, and placed a hand on Hawkeye’s knee.

“I am sitting here and I’m telling you this and I mean every word. I’m choosing survival, hope, joy—the best things I can find, so I can make it through this crummy war. I don’t want to...I _can't_ and I _won't_ worry about anything else.”

Hawkeye looked at B.J., _really_ looked. Let every emotion shine through his gaze with astounding strength, with raw and visceral power.

The love he knew was on his face was mirrored on B.J.’s own.

He’d harbored this secret for months. He’d hidden his real feelings behind jokes and obfuscations, pawned his need for proximity off as friendliness, or drunkenness, or both. Revealing it for the first time, in all its complexity and strength and idiosyncrasies, was as if some unseen burden was suddenly lifted.

For so long, he’d been afraid of how B.J. might react if he discovered his true feelings. Hawkeye had also been afraid of the depth of his own feelings, and angry at himself for feeling them.

He had no right to expect reciprocation from a man whose wife and child were half a world away.

It was selfish and self-serving and cruel to indulge in any of his fantasies.

How could he ask the man he loved to go against such an important part of his life?

He wouldn’t, not ever.

And yet.

That same man was sitting in front of him, telling him in no unspoken terms that those fears had been unfounded. And the one that was founded was not one he wanted to worry about in the middle of a war zone.

It wasn’t rational or logical or possible. How was any of this real?

The creeping allure of doubt still nibbled the edges of his mind, hissing misgivings and stoking uncertainties with cruel words. Yes, B.J. was saying all these things now. But what about in an hour? A day? The war might end next week, and B.J.’d go back to Mill Valley while he toted a broken heart all the way to Maine.

This was one final leap of faith, one last jump over the ravine that Hawkeye was hesitating in front of.

He needed certainty, reassurance. Could B.J. give it to him? Not those fanciful promises of young loves, built on cheap wine and dreams, but a promise laid with cement, sturdy bricks, patience, and planning?

“You’ll regret it. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow. But soon and for the rest of your life.”

“A bit dramatic, aren’t we Mr. Bogart?”

But Hawkeye didn’t share in B.J.’s attempt at a playful diffusion. The Californian changed tactics. He scooted a little closer in his chair, his knees resting between Hawkeye’s. Bringing a hand up, he tenderly cupped Hawkeye’s cheek and brought his face to within a few inches of his friend’s.

“I won’t regret you. Ever.”

For a moment, he just looked deeply into Hawkeye’s beautiful eyes, memorizing the way the light reflected off the flecks of color, the dancing fluctuations of blue.

“I meant what I wrote on that page, Hawk,” B.J. whispered huskily. “I need you.”

He watched as his words sunk in, the procession of sentiment across Hawkeye’s face.

And then, much to his surprise, Hawkeye _laughed_.

It started off as just a tiny giggle, a murmuring amusement. And then quickly it snowballed into full-blown belly laughs, painting him with an ecstatic expression, filling the tent with the most beautiful sound.

It only took a moment before B.J. had joined in. The two slapped knees, huge smiles on their faces, and rocked back and forth in delight. This was what each of them had been missing for the past few days, this instinctive connection between them, this tangible energy that fed effortlessly off of itself until they were both swathed in joy.

They laughed and laughed until they were all laughed out, B.J.’s fingers threaded in Hawkeye’s hair, their foreheads touching, Hawkeye’s hands grabbing B.J.’s arms.

It felt so normal.

Like old times…but with…something… _more._

They quieted until it was only their heavy breathing breaking the silence of the VIP tent. Hawkeye playfully nudged his nose against B.J.'s, a wide grin still on his face. 

"So, there's a secret I gotta tell ya, Beej," the dark-haired surgeon whispered into the small space between them. 

The playful atmosphere shifted rather quickly to one of charged excitement, uncontrollable heat. 

"Oh...yeah?" 

B.J. couldn't help but glance down at Hawkeye's lips as he spoke. 

"There's this guy. I'm pretty sure he knows I like him. Tall, light hair, a wicked mustache. Huge feet, too. He's got these incredibly attractive red suspenders that I can never stop looking at. Punny jokes always at the ready. And his smile, geez, knocks you straight out..."

As he'd been talking, Hawkeye had incrementally inched closer, until by the time he was done, his lips were almost touching B.J.'s.

”And I’m...trying to figure out...if I should tell him or not.”

Hawkeye had a small smirk on his face and playful flirtation burning in his eyes.

“Oh yeah?” It sounded breathy even to B.J.’s ears, his repeated response quiet and challenging. All at once he remembered Hawkeye’s purported flirtatious prowess—the way he always seemed to wrap his conquests around his finger; his inviting, dulcet, poetic proclamations; how he undressed you with his eyes and whispered suggestions that left you blushing.

B.J. should have known what he was getting into. He’d often wondered about the internal workings of Hawkeye’s masterful ability to tempt and tease. Now, he didn’t have to guess or imagine. _This_ , this was all for him. The sultry looks, the hot breath laden with want, the electricity of long fingers wrapped around his arms.   
  


Hawkeye knew exactly the kind of effect he was having on B.J. if the wide pupils and stuttering breaths were any indication. With his smile growing he brought his lips just close enough to brush the Californian’s. It was meant to toy, to play, to come close to the edge but not yet cross the line.

All he was aware of was his heavy breathing, B.J.’s fingers in his hair, and how right this felt.   
  


And then, when he knew he couldn’t stand it for one moment longer, Hawkeye brought his lips tenderly to B.J.’s.  
  


The kiss was soft and pure and loving. It wasn’t the sloppy passion from earlier; it was slow and new. The quiet explorations of a first love that sings of romance and of ardent affection, the kind Hawkeye had always imagined, that rivaled the most exquisite on-screen kisses that Hollywood could offer.  
  


Pulling back momentarily, Hawkeye opened his eyes. The gentle care he’d put into that kiss was vulnerable and real, his whole heart laid bare for B.J.  
  
It wasn’t some stolen passion with a pretty nurse, the only thing on his mind a need to be satiated. This was genuine, innocent emotion—a realized dream he’d been hoping for from the first moment he’d laid eyes on the tall surgeon from California.   
  


“But something tells me he already knows,” Hawkeye murmured hoarsely.

He felt B.J.’s fingers untangle from his hair to clasp the back of his neck as the taller man chuckled in response.  
  


Leaning forward to rest his forehead against Hawkeye’s, B.J. sighed contentedly. He had to keep reminding himself that he wasn’t dreaming, that this was really happening. This was a little slice of heaven they’d found in the middle of hell.

“Speaking of secrets...” B.J. started. 

He got to his feet, rolling his eyes at the discontented sound Hawkeye made at the break in contact. With one hand B.J. grabbed Hawkeye’s jacket and with the other he gestured towards the door.

”There’s something, well some _things_ I want to show you.”


	11. I Wish I Was

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When I started this story, I had no idea how I was going to end it. Even now...I'm not sure this is the ending. I'd planned to take this a few more places but I've lost the threads of inspiration. So I decided to conclude it with a final short chapter, leaving it open at the end in case I ever decide to revisit it. Thank you to everyone who read, left kudos, or commented on this fic. It was a fun story for me even if I'm unhappy with how it's ending. 
> 
> Title inspo from the song of the same name by The Avett Brothers

All that was heard was the rustling of pages and their quiet breathing.

They’d once again commandeered the VIP tent—for _very_ _important_ _purposes_.

Every so often there’d be a chuckle, or a surprised murmur that punctuated the ambient quiet.

A passed flask.

Shy smiles.

Blue eyes meeting and then quickly skirting away.

Cheeks red, and not just from the gin.

Eventually the reading ended and the two sat back, not knowing what to say. Or rather, how to put into words exactly what they were feeling.

Words were plentiful on the scattered pages around them, but speaking them into existence was another thing entirely.

B.J.’s mind was running a mile a minute. Phrases from Hawkeye’s letters floated in front of his eyes and sent his heart hammering with abandon in his chest. What had begun as his way to cope, to channel his hidden feelings and suppressed urges, was somehow now a shared thing between them. _Their_ secret, not just his. If he hadn’t been holding the physical proof in his hands, he would scarcely believe it…

As for Hawkeye, he was too stunned to move. To think. So unlike his constant state of chaos and activity and debauchery. If he never stopped moving or talking, he wouldn’t have to slow down and see the terror that lived around and within him. But now he was still. He’d let his world catch up to him and he didn’t even know where to begin with unravelling it all. Here— _B.J.—_ was a good thing, a real thing, that might be his life raft in this raging sea of a war…

A hand on his knee drew him from his thoughts.

“Well.”

The two looked at each other, questions burning on their tongues and bubbling in their throats.

What was there to say after all they’d written?

“Well,” Hawkeye replied, a hesitant grin on his face.

Should they surge forward, lay it all out now and strip away the last mask on their souls? Should they wait, process everything they’d read and revisit the unknown that lay before them later?

As much as both men ached for a resolution, a plan, neither one said anything else.

The path ahead was messy and complicated, strewn with what ifs and prior commitments and messy camp gossip. Diving into it might burst whatever bubble they’d carefully crafted here in the tent—the blissfully unaware haven where they could be undeniably themselves and love whomever they chose to love. Shattering this promising reverie so soon was not something either one of them wanted.

Unbeknownst to the other, they reached this very conclusion at the same time. It lay unspoken in the air between them.

B.J. squeezed Hawkeye’s knee before getting to his feet, tucking the now re-folded letters under his arm as he did.

“Want to grab some coffee?”

Hawkeye nodded. He didn’t necessarily ever _want_ the mess tent coffee; but he’d probably need it given the lack of sleep the night before. 

As he watched B.J. lumber to the door, Hawkeye was struck by how similar, yet how different, this all was. They’d been alone numerous times. They’d had long talks in the VIP tent, sat together on the same bed, shared small touches or looks.

But not like this.

“This won’t…change anything, will it?”

The question escaped before Hawkeye had a chance to think it through. His voice sounded uncertain even to his own ears, and he winced as B.J. paused, hand on the door.

He immediately wished he could take it back.

They’d talk, of _course_ they’d talk.

They did practically little else.

They’d discuss the letters, what they were thinking and feeling, what this all meant. They were still the same people, they still shared the kind of close bond only found in combat.

There was now just something…new.

Hawkeye watched as B.J. turned around slowly, his head canted. His deep blue eyes shone brightly in the tent light.

“Hawk. I think a lot of things are about to change. But that doesn’t necessarily make it bad, right?”

A slender hand extended towards the still seated surgeon.

“Come on, don’t keep me waiting for our first real date.”

Maybe it was the way B.J. whispered those last few words, the tenderness in his voice. Maybe it was the affection in his gaze, or the joy written on every inch of his face. Whatever it was, Hawkeye could feel the uncertainty slipping from his limbs like raindrops down a fogged window.

Different, but not a bad different.

He took the offered hand with a smile and a seedling of hope blooming in his chest. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I put the entire song this chapter title came from in the notes because it is a perfect summation of this story. This was my inspiration for a lot of the chapters and moments.
> 
> "I wish I was a flame dancing in a candle  
> Lighting up your living room high on the mantle  
> I could bring some romance without any scandal  
> And then when you were done you'd just put me out
> 
> I wish I was a tune you sang in your kitchen  
> Putting your groceries away and washing your dishes  
> I could float around your tongue and ease the tension  
> And then when you were done you'd just quiet down
> 
> But if I get too close  
> Will the magic fade?  
> Would I turn you off or away?  
> If I pull you in  
> Would I push you out  
> Of something here you care about?  
> Well I'm at a loss for what to do  
> But I'm drawn to you
> 
> I wish I was a sweater wrapped around your hips  
> And when it got too cold into me you'd slip  
> And when the sun came back you would hang me up  
> And I would watch you while you undress
> 
> But if I get too close  
> Will the magic fade?  
> Would I turn you off or away?  
> If I pull you in  
> Now would I push you out  
> Of something here you care about?  
> Well I'm at a loss for what to do  
> But I'm drawn to you
> 
> I'm not a song  
> I am not a sweater  
> I'm not a fire  
> I am something better  
> I'm a man in love writing you a letter  
> Will you take it  
> Will you keep it  
> Will you read it  
> Believe it  
> I love you  
> I'm sorry."


End file.
